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
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A. Lee Henderson
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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.)
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