Hyannis February 13, 2015 Cheryl Bartlett, a drug abuse expert and former commissioner of the state DPH Photo by Alan Belanich

If youre sick, Cheryl Bartlett is the nurse you want at your bedside.

Why? Shes got the top echelon of Bay State health care officials on speed dial.

In truth, Bartlett is no ordinary nurse. Shes the former commissioner of the Department of Public Health, having recently stepped down from the role toward the end of Gov. Deval Patricks administration in December.

Bartlett has also spent years in the weeds of public health care and administration, with a specialty in outreach, reorganization and rallying the troops.

And best of all, shes the Capes very own and has returned home full time after years of spending her weeks on Beacon Hill. Bartlett is from the peninsula -- with homes in Hyannis and in Yarmouth Port -- and now her new job is here, too.

Bartlett began working at Cape Cod Healthcare in December as the organizations executive director of the Cape Cod Regional Substance Abuse Prevention Initiative and Public Health. The initiative -- a conglomerate of health and human services groups began about a year ago.

Commissioner of the DPH since May 2013 and with years of practical nursing and administrative experience on the Cape and Islands, Bartlett sat down with the Patriot last week, exploring challenges and opportunities as she comes to the aid of the region during perhaps its time of greatest need: a wave of heroin overdoses and death.

Some of her thoughts and views are express verbatim here:

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Health Care: Cape's prodigious daughter returns