Conversation with Healthcare Team Lead Ilene Robeck, MD

by Bonnie Hough, VOTER team member

Ilene Robeck, MD has spent her career practicing general internal medicine both in private practice and with the Veteran’s Administration (VA). She is also board-certified in addiction medicine and is responsible for building pain management and virtual education programs locally and nationally for the VA. After retiring in 2019, Ilene joined the League to become more involved in local issues. Just this past year, Ilene has taken the helm of the newly-created Healthcare Action Team for LWVSPA. 

Tell me about the LWVSPA healthcare team. 

The healthcare team launched in 2020 as LWVSPA leadership recognized how many important healthcare issues were on the horizon for our community, our state, and our nation. Since we have just gotten started, the healthcare team is really still figuring out how we can make the most impact, but a few of the issues we are educating ourselves on and plan to engage in 2022 are as follows: 

  • Helping to educate legislators and the community about COVID safety protocols to keep our members and our community at large safe
  • Supporting the LWVSPA’s reproductive rights team
  • Educating the public and legislators about Medicaid expansion
  • Addressing the need for greater access to mental healthcare – Florida currently ranks 48 of 50th in terms of access to mental health care support

The LWVSPA healthcare team is focused on understanding and advocating for appropriate access to healthcare. While COVID-19 has certainly been top of mind for us this year and will continue to be a component of the work we do, our goal as an action team more broadly is to educate ourselves and others, both general community members and legislators, about the many healthcare issues that affect all of us. 

For members interested in learning more, what are some good resources or local organizations that provide more information on this topic?

This issue is so broad, it’s hard to pinpoint any one resource. My suggestion would be to join our team! I am looking for a co-leader in this work and welcome any league member who would be interested in learning more to join our next meeting. If you are interested, please contact me at IRRobeck@gmail.com.

While resources are hard to narrow down, there are great local organizations that we have worked with in the past and hope to work with in the future that I would like to highlight: 

What do you like to do outside of volunteering with the League?

Beyond the league, the other organization I am highly involved in is the Academy of Senior Professionals (ASPEC) through Eckerd College. It is a wonderful group of lifelong learners with daily sessions in-person and online that covers almost any topic or interest you could think of. I highly recommend it – I actually learned about the League through a member of ASPEC!

My husband and I live in Gulfport and can’t recommend it’s arts community highly enough. The Gulfport community is lucky to be home to an incredibly rich number of arts resources. If you haven’t been to Gulfport, you’re missing out!

Lastly, when I retired I decided I would like to learn to sail. Thanks to the St. Petersburg Sailing Center, I was able to. The Sailing Center is another wonderful community resource I am grateful to have access to.