Worcester Business Journal

26 Worcester Business Journal | March 15, 2021 | wbjournal.com F O C U S H A L L O F F A M E Castiel works to eliminate healthcare inequities BY GRANT WELKER Worcester Business Journal News Editor WBJ Hall of Fame Matilde "Mattie" Castiel Commissioner of Health and Human Services City of Worcester Her birthplace: Camaguey, Cuba By the ocean: After moving to Holden from L.A. 33 years ago, Castiel and her husband Aaron bought a house by a pond because of her desire to be by the water. In 2020, Castiel bought a house in Quincy by the ocean and goes on weekends to get a dose of ocean life. Passion: "When I talk about something that I am passionate about and care deeply, or something that reminds me of my father or I think about him, I start to cry while I am talking. The men at Hector Reyes House would take bets about how long it would take me to begin crying. I still do that all the time. I wish I could control that, but it has not happened yet." M atilde "Mattie" Castiel was 6 years old, unaccompanied except for her 8-year- old brother, when she le her native Cuba to come to the U.S. Castiel was part of an American effort called Operation Peter Pan to get Cuban children out of a nation in upheaval during the early days of the Fidel Castro regime. Knowing no English, they first stayed with a foster family in Miami before moving to the Los Angeles area, where Castiel was later joined four months later by her parents. It's an experience Castiel uses to this day to shape her work as Worcester's health and human services commissioner, a position whose importance could hardly be any more important during a public health crisis that's killed more than 400 Worcester residents. To Castiel, the coronavirus pandemic has highlighted what she's long known: not everyone receives the same quality healthcare, and not everyone has the same trust of government or the medical community. People of color have been especially hard hit by the pandemic, an acute problem exposing the issue Castiel has dedicated her career to: addressing healthcare inequity. ose efforts have included speaking in her native Spanish at city press conferences to better get important messages to those who don't understand English. Other times, she's talked to groups about how she got vaccinated herself to demonstrate getting a shot is safe and effective. She enrolled in the Pfizer clinical trial at UMass Memorial Medical Center last year. "ere's a lot of hesitancy about it," Castiel said of the COVID-19 vaccine. "A lot of people say 'Let me wait and see.'" e pressing health crisis is new, but the work for Castiel isn't. "Part of what I've always wanted to do in my job is bring equity to the community," said Castiel, who's held the city's top health position since 2015. Before joining the city, Castiel was the executive director and medical director of the Latin American Health Alliance, a Worcester health clinic running the Hector Reyes House, a residential substance abuse treatment center. In that position in 2014, Castiel started Cafe Reyes, a Cuban restaurant on Shrewsbury Street serving as a training center for Hector Reyes House residents and graduates. In fact, relatively little of what Castiel does could be seen as directly related to providing health care. Instead, she and her office focus much of their efforts on what are known as social determinants of health – the lack of nutritious food or access to reliable housing, for example, that might end PHOTO/MATT WRIGHT

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