Rita Gilles

The Project

Rita will provide legal aid to low-income families of children and adolescent patients at Mount Sinai Hospital Pediatric Associates in East Harlem to address social and legal determinants of poor health.

Rita’s project brings together New York Legal Assistance Group’s LegalHealth division and the Mount Sinai Medical-Legal Partnership (MSMLP) Pediatric Program to support low-income children by providing civil legal services embedded in the hospital. Medical-legal partnerships connect medical and legal services by screening for unmet needs at medical appointments. Legal intervention on issues children face, such as uninhabitable housing, has the compounded effect of improving health as well as living conditions.

Rita has an unwavering interest in providing legal services in a medical setting. She previously worked in a pediatric clinic in New Haven, Connecticut, developing experiences she can transfer to MSMLP.

Fellowship Plans

Rita’s project will serve children in East Harlem by mitigating the social and legal determinants that contribute to poor health in low-income families. To achieve that goal, Rita will offer direct legal representation on matters such as benefits, housing, and education, pursue broad-scale initiatives to address these social and legal determinants of health, and train physicians to recognize and spot legal issues.