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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 19, 1981)
Page 4 Portland Observer, November 19, 1981 EDITORIAL/OPINION by M ary Claire Blakeman Pacific News Service Suffer the little children Headstart parents are fighting to save their program. The Reagan adm inistration has an nounced plans to cut the Headstart budget next year to elim inate fu ll-d a y, year-around pro grams. Locally the Albina Ministerial Alliance Head start is in danger. This program provides child care, with educational, medical and social ser vices, to 200 children in nine centers in North, Northeast and Southeast Portland. These chil dren are from low-income families; their parents work, are in training or are in school. These par ents cannot adjust their schedules to six-hour days and nine-month years. Closure or restric tion o f hours o f this program w ill mean that children w ill be in substandard child care ar rangements or their parents w ill have to go on welfare. Forcing families onto welfare at a time when welfare budgets are being cut drastically is not only unwise but it is costly. Not only are children to be denied the educational benefits o f Head start, but they will be denied the basic necessities o f food, shelter and medical care. It is a cruel nation that does not care for its own children. Reagan cuts opportunity A fter only ten months in office the Reagan Administration has made gains in its all-out at tack on equal opportunity. Equal opportunity/ affirmative action regulations and requirements have been hit from all directions. Under Secretary Raymond Donovan the De partment o f Labor has revised rules to restrict the number o f employers that come under a ffir mative action guidelines. The new regulations change the affected employers from those with 50 employees and $50,000 in federal contracts to 250 employees and $ 1 million in contracts. The rules reduce by 75 per cent the number o f indus trial contractors and by 80 per cent the colleges and universities that w ill have to file affirmative action reports. Much o f the “ red tape’’ designed to protect minority rights will be removed. The Department o f Education has proposed a reinterpretation o f T itle IX that would cause equal rights to extend to female students but not female employees o f educational institutions. Oakland project lowers deaths Vice-President Bush, along with Education Sec retary T.H. Bell, finds the rules that require equal distribution o f funds between men’ s and wom en’s athletic programs to be too cumbersome. The Vice-President has also asked that the Equal Rights Commission’ s sexual harassment guidelines be reviewed and revised to cause less burden to employers. He also w ill reassess the EEOC guidelines to eliminate tests and selection procedures that discriminate against minorities and women. Now, A rthur Flemming has been fired from his position as head o f the Civil Rights Commis sion because he believes in and works for civil rights. With an unemployment rate o f approximately eight per cent in the nation and ten per cent in Oregon, these signals do not bode well fo r minorities. I f the few gains made in the ’60s and ’ 70s are to be retained, we must fight these changes every step o f the way. t-lELLO. AMeRicnH susiuess cowiun - ICATI0NS? FRANK iVRUCie HERE. Y o u 'R e PRORRBLY MHD B fc n u s e / voted flti-AiNST fo u FOR. TW£ CITV'S'PHONE CONTRACT R ut I JjfA S T IL L r u e MAYOR AROUND HERE ANO I DEMAND THE KIND OF 'PHoNe As eveRYone else in t h is I KNOW in Oakland that the traditional mod el o f large centralized hospitals which required patients to come to East O akland, C a lif.— U n til re them had to be reversed. H ealth cently, pregnancy entailed a terrible care had to go to the heart o f the risk for Debra Pierce. 22, and Mary community. Spann, 21: Their chances o f losing a The changes this approach has child before its first birthday once helped bring about are readily ap were roughly double the national parent at the Eastern Health Center, average. one o f the project's neighborhood The infant m ortality rate here in clinics. ” 1 used to have to wait for past years has parelleled (hose in hours. I used to take a nap w a it T h ird W o rld countries, and O a k ing,” said Debra Pierce o f the over land's dismal statistics are mirrored crowded San Francisco hospitals in m inority neighborhoods o f U .S. where she delivered her first two cities from New York and Chicago children. “ But the biggest d iffe r to Detroit and Washington, D .C . ence here is that they fo llo w the The nation’s infant mortality rate pregnancy more closely. They ask for Blacks in 1978 was 23.1 per about everything— nutrition , how 1,000 live births. For whites it was are the kids doing, how am I doing 12. — everything.” Since then, however, this city has M ary Spann agreed: “ Here they begun winning the battle to save the lake more tim e with you and they lives o f children born to the Black, answer your questions. At the other H ispanic and Asian im m igrant hosp ital, they d o n ’ t do nothing. women who populate its east side. Thai's why I didn’t go back.” The East O akland infant m ortality T o d a y , expectant mothers in rale fell from 23.4 per 1,00 in 1975- high-risk areas o f Oakland using the 77 to 15.8 two years later, fueling a clinics receive nutrition education citywide improvement o f almost 20 and psycho-social counseling, and per cent. they must agree to attend childbirth classes. Mothers also arc expected to Behind I his turnaround lies a mix come in often during the pregnancy o f factors that may represent the for short checkups. most effective equation for deliver “ These checkups alone w ill re ing high-standard health care to duce the risks trem endously, be low-incom e people in the m oney cause we become aware o f any prob scarce 1980s; an interplay o f com lems early o n .” said Judy Rosen munity pressure, neighborhood-cen berg, a clinical social worker at San tered health care approaches and re Antonio Neighborhood Health Cen sponsive governm ent funding. ter, another projeci clinic not far Com bined, these factors made the from dow ntow n O a k la n d . The Oakland program something other clinic focuses on "treating the whole than the a ll-lo o -c o m m o n story o f person,” she explained. " A lot o f it public dollars poured endlessly into is getting patients here regularly and a problem that won’t go away. having them know that people care The tale begins in M ay 1978, about them, so when there is a prob when the dram atic differences bc- lem, they leel sale about calling. iwen infant m ortality rales in white “ Part of the reason we started the and n o n -w h ile areas o f O aklan d clin ic,” Rosenberg added, “ was to first surfaced in county health slat is bring the good parts of the (holistic sues. prom pting widespread com health) movement to low -incom e, m unity outrage and demands for multiracial groups.” change. One idea from the holistic ap Things might not have moved for proacli holds that a person’s beha ward so rapidly, remembered local vior and health are greatly affected health activist Harvey Smith, " i f it by the amount o f support available had not been an election year.” But from fa m ily and friends. In the the luror in O akland was a reality O akland clinics this idea has been that many C alifo rn ia politicians— translated into "support services,” including Governor Jerry Brown — which range from home visits by could not a ffo rd to ignore in 1978. public health nurses and nurse mid- On a visit to the city. Brown prom wives to clinical social workers help ised that something would be done. ing young mothers find a place to “ All the way along the line there live. was com m u nity presure to make Ih c impact o f such support for sure the governor kept his p ro m pregnant women was underscored is e ,” added S m ith . M uch o f that ilia 1979 study which looked at pressure came from the United East teen— and even pre-teen — mothers Oakland Clergy and the Coalition to hi North Oakland, where the infant Fight In fa n t M o r ta lity , which mortality rate in the mid-1970s was formed in late 1977 and grew to in almost as high as East Oakland's. clude more than 40 local organiza “ Women in North O akland did tions, churches and clinics. Even receive pre-natal care, so we looked tually a slate grant ol $1.5 m illion at other v a ria b le s ,” said Laura arrived to launch the Oakland Pre Hicks, who directed the study. "W e natal H ea lth P ro je c t, a program found that 12-ycar-olds had less now based in seven neighborhood problems than 15-year-olds, appar clinics and one area hospital. ently because the 12-ycar-olds were The key inspiration shaping the still within the fam ily's care while projeci was the growing understand Ihc 15-year-olds were out o f the ing among health care professionals fam ily and d id n ’ t have that sup port. Hicks also noted that for real re sults, medical inform ation and ad vice had to go not only to the preg nant w om an, but also Io those around her— in a sense, to serve the whole community with each patient. Public health nurse Paula Kelleher, who works in a projeci clinic housed by O a k la n d ’ s Y W C A , said she makes it a point during home visits to involve as many members o f the family as she can: "T h e grandmoth ers sometimes look at you with one eye cocked up, so when I'm talking about breast-feeding, I ’m careful to validate what each generation has done.” “ I ’ m now seeing a num ber o f Spanish-speaking w om en,” added nurse midwife Janelle Slreich, who works at the Eastern Health Center. ” 1 think it has spread through word o f m outh that I speak Spanish. I used to come one afternoon a week and get three patients a month. Re cently I ’ve been getting 11 and 12 a month and I come here three or four times a week. It's interesting to see what that personal contact can d o." The impact o f pressure from (he Coalition for changes in East O a k land maternity care is perhaps most striking at H ig h lan d H o s p ita l, a once-troubled county facility which must accept all patients, regardless o f a b ility to pay. This sum mer, Highland got a new obstetrics and gynecology staff, a new life-support system for its emergency room, an upgrading o f its nursing team and, alter a court battle, translators for the area's large immigrant popula tion. "Community pressure did a lot to change H ighland,” said W illie Mae Thompson, a longtime resident and activist who raised three kids o f her own and 41 foster children and today serves on the hospital's board o f directors. " N o one group is re sponsible for the changes. We had to take a team approach.” " T h e thing that's exciting about the Oakland project is that it’s com m unity based and built fro m the ground u p .” agreed Dion Aroner, administrative assistant to Assembly man lo in Bales, whose district in cludes parts o f O a k la n d . “ The com munity has adopted Highland lather than the other way around.” Despite the optimism and upbeat attitudes o f those involved in the <lakland success story, a large cloud looms over the future in the form of pioposed federal cutbacks in social service funds. C om m unity health activists are painfully aware o f what happens in areas where p re-natal pilot p ro grams dry up. Between I9 6 0 and 1961, a nurse-midwifery program to serve the transients and farm work ers ot Madera County helped lower infant m ortality from 23.9 to 10.3 per 1,000. But shortly after the con clusion o f the pro g ram , the rate tripled. I9H| P. k i I k NcwxScrvKr Letters to the Editor Blame citizens, Agin9 agency sets Albina hearin0 not Shadburn To the editor: To the editor: Portland Observer (^ 3 M A n r x iA t The P o rtla n d Observer IU S P S 969 6801 i i published every Thursday by Exie Publishing Company, Inc., 2201 North Killings worth, Portland, Oregon 97217, Post Office Box 3137, Portland Oregon 97208 Second claes postage paid at Portland. Oregon Subscriptions 110 00 per year in Tri-County area. Postm aster: Send address changes to the Portland Observer, P C. Box 3137, Portland, Oregon 97206 Editor/Publisher A. Lee Henderson 2Xi2AM N atio n al Advertising Representative A m alg am ated Publishers. Inc. N e w Vorh Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association ÎM In your article dated 1 0 /8 /8 1 headlined “ Overlook Attacks Pros titution Problems,” Commissioner Gladys M cCoy was quoted as hav ing said, " . . .the problem with new jails is where to put them, and re m inded the crow d that C o m m is sioner Shadburne, who has recently created a Task Force on P ro s titu tion, is responsible for stopping the building o f a new jail in Troutdale.” Poor Commissioner McCoy is un fortunately either uninformed or de liberately telling an untruth. She ap parently did n ’t know that the C ity Planning Commission o f Troutdale and the Troutdale City Council both rejected (he concept o f a new ja il there. So le t’ s be honest, fair and decent and place the blame where it belongs— in the City o f Troutdale. Dan Mosee I wish to fo rm ally apologize on behalf o f the Area Agency on Aging for not scheduling a public hearing in the A lb in a area on our C it y / C ounty Aging Policy. Id e a lly , we wanted to conduct public hearings in each o f our eight district senior centers, which are geographically lo cated in the various areas o f the city. H ow ever, we have some stringent tim elines if we are to present the Policy to City and County Commi- sioners for their approval during the early part o f 1982. I assure you that it was not due to a lack o f sensitivity on our part. We recognize that in most cases the problems o f minority elderly are sig nificantly greater than other ethnic groups. Wc strongly feel that the in put trom the Albina community and senior residents is valu ab le. The community can serve as a facilitator in advocating the adoption o f the Aging Policy. I have directed staff to schedule a hearing in the N ortheast A lb in a area. Once the date has been estab lished, wc will submit a press release to the Observer. Erma E. Hepburn Executive Director, Human Resource Bureau (E d ito r’s note: A hearing has been set for December 3rd, 2:00 pm, at 1700 N .E . Alberta.) Be c o n cern ed l Be in fo rm e d ll K n o w th e fe c te lll Subscribe Today! R eceive you r Observer by m all Only 110 per year. MEMBER NÊWA pep AMoclatlon ■ Founded I M S Zip W atch for: Black Americans seek spiritual roots in Israel, Part III, next week. Make checks payable to: Portland Observer P O Box 3137 Portland, Omgon 97208
