Longmeadow Health Director retires after nearly three decades

Dec. 3, 2020 | Sarah Heinonen
sarah@thereminder.com

LONGMEADOW – After 27 years watching over the health of Longmeadow residents, Health Director Beverly Hirschhorn is retiring.

“It’s certainly been interesting,” Hirschhorn said of her career. “I’m fortunate to have found a vocation which is also my avocation,” Hirschhorn said of public health work.

“To see the field change over time is quite spectacular. The breadth of areas the board of health is responsible for has grown. The emphasis is not on inspection, like many people think – going to restaurants or businesses. There’s a heck of a lot of management skills, grant writing, strategic thinking on where you want your town to go.”

Hirschhorn served on the Longmeadow Board of Health beginning in the 1980s. She later served as a contractor in town and began her career as the health director in 1993. Hirschhorn earned degrees in microbiology/ micro-science and public health with a focus on epidemiology.

Hirschhorn said that the things she is most proud of are the ways in which she helped build the health department from the ground up.

“I started with very little records, no infrastructure. I tried to think about ‘what do I need to do?’ and ‘what do I need to do under the law?’ and also change with the times,” Hirschhorn said. “To see where the state has gone is pretty interesting.”

She said that Massachusetts is somewhat unique in that the Commonwealth allows municipalities to write stronger regulations than exist at the state level.

“I’m very proud of the work I did in assisting the board of health in drafting regulations,” including those on tobacco products and consumer protection, Hirschhorn told Reminder Publishing. “It’s been quite the journey,” Hirschhorn said.

Hirschhorn’s retirement has been a long time coming. She explained that Longmeadow had been exploring a shared-services model for quite some time, which she views as a necessary shift. Moving forward, she said, “It’s going to be difficult for towns to have their own boards of health in the future without sharing some of the administrative aspects,” Hirschhorn said, adding that the agencies will either need more personnel or a shared-services model.

The idea, as Hirschhorn saw it, was that she would retire around the end of this year, just when the new model would have taken shape. However, the pandemic interrupted any possible inter-municipal agreements.

Speaking of the pandemic, Hirschhorn said she doesn’t have too many reservations about leaving while it is ongoing. “I’m not exactly sure what role the board of health is going to have in the distribution chain [of a vaccine]. The role of the local boards of health is going to be limited. We have plans on file and I’m pretty sure any new person will be fine following them.”

Hirschhorn said her successor’s challenge will be to balance the administrative side of the job with the inspection aspect. She also said they will need to shape the department as they see fit, “whether they want to expand, retract or change,” policies and regulations.

Personally, Hirschhorn plans to relax in her retirement and spend time with her partner. In the future, she said, she might have some role in public health, either as a volunteer or a consultant. She noted that her retirement won’t be what she thought it would, because the pandemic will make travel and many leisure activities impossible, at least until there is a vaccine.

Ever the health agent, Hirschhorn took the opportunity to encourage everyone to get the coronavirus vaccine, “so that people can return to normalcy.”

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