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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 13, 2017)
Page 4 December 13, 2017 Terence Keller Driving Healthcare Equity A full Service Realtor • List & Sell your House • Find your New Home • Help you Invest • Find you the Best Loan • Help with Pre-Sale Prep • Hold Open House to sell your home Portland is my Town Call Terence Keller 503 839-6126 Liberty Group Realtors Inc. terencekellersr@gmail.com • Oregon License 200306037 Chicago-Style Steppin Fun, Healthy Social Dance for Couples and Singles. Weekly Classes www.groovinhighsteppers.com Denise Johnson 503-819-4576 Hernandez Williams 206-683-4101 Co-Founders and Instructers C ontinueD froM f ront monette’s top priorities. “Making sure that people have access to high quality health care, and that includes birth control, is so important for our communities, Right. I mean, in the long run, it keeps the community much more healthy if we can have preventa- tive care,” Symonette said. Jimmy Radosta, Planned Par- enthood’s local media relations director, said reproductive health- care disparities are rampant among women of color. Latinas, Native Americans, and African Ameri- cans have higher rates of cervical cancer than other groups and Af- rican-American women have the highest incidence rate of breast cancer among women younger than 45. Cervical and breast can- cer screenings are one of the orga- nization’s flagship services and 40 percent of their patients are people of color, Symonette said. Some of the other services Planned Parenthood provides are emergency contraception, fertili- ty, sexually transmitted infection testing, pregnancy testing and counseling, well checks, sexual education, abortion care (which accounts for 6 percent of their services), and emergency and pre- ventative contraception medicine. Back in October, the Trump ad- ministration rolled out a mandate which gives all employers, not just religious institutions, the option of not covering employees’ birth control medicine on the grounds of religious or other beliefs —a move that overturned an Obama era mandate from the Affordable Care Act. Planned Parenthood advocates said this could cause as many as 360,000 women to lose coverage of birth control medicine in Or- egon in 2018, despite Oregon’s Reproductive Health Equity Act passed in August. The law will expand Oregonians’ access to no- cost reproductive health services like contraception and prohibits discrimination in the provision of those services, but won’t fully go into effect until 2019, hence the gap in coverage. According to a 2011 report from the Guttmacher Institute, 58 percent of women have used contraceptive medicine, at least in part, for health needs other than pregnancy prevention, including endometriosis, fibroids, menstrual regulation, and polycystic ovari- an syndrome, which is prevalent among women of color. Besides the Planned Parent- hood headquarters in northeast Portland, the local chapter has clinics in southeast Portland, Bea- verton, Bend Milwaukie-Oak Grove, Salem and Vancouver. 94 percent of its over 72,000 annual patient visits are for preventative sexual health care like birth con- trol, annual exams, screenings for breast and cervical cancer, HIV testing and counseling, and saf- er sex counseling. 83 percent of Planned Parenthood patients are also low income. As a health care practitioner herself, through her acupuncture business, Symonette said she saw a need for people of color to re- ceive culturally competent care. “I’m a black, queer woman, so I have a personal investment in making sure that we’re an equi- table and inclusive organization,” Symonette said. Symonette has overseen an expansion of services during the time she has served on the board. She supported and advocated for Planned Parenthood to start pro- viding transgender hormone re- placement therapy for people 18 or older, for instance, which just began within the last couple of years. That therapy started at the clinic-level, Symonette said, and then-CEO Stacy Cross also advo- cated for it. It was later voted in by the board as an official service offering. And thanks to the Repro- ductive Health Equity Act’s an- ti-discrimination component, more access to health services like this, as well as cancer screening, will be made available to trans people. “We provide confidential care and non-judgmental care. And I think a lot of people come to us for that. You know, you might not feel comfortable going to your primary care doctor to get, um, trans-hormonal care, but maybe you’re more inclined for Planned Parenthood because you know that we’re so supportive of our communities that we serve,” Sy- monette said. Other services added in the last five years include prenatal care and telemedic services, which is when patients can video confer- ence a doctor or nurse practitioner, for things like prescription refills, remotely. Symonette has personally advocated for diversity within the organization, promoting Af- rican Americans, members of the LGBTQ community, Native Americans, Latinos, and Asians as board members and creating two equity and inclusion positions, both of which were met with sup- port from her fellow board mem- bers. She holds a bachelor’s degree in biological psychology from Western Washington University and participated in federally fund- ed neuroscience research while there. She also has a master’s de- gree in acupuncture and Oriental medicine from Oregon College of Oriental Medicine and her practice specializes in women’s health- care; fertility, anything related to menstrual cycles, and menopause. She has a 7 month old child with her wife, Lai-Lani. “I’m the first woman of color to chair this board. It’s important for us to see ourselves in places of leadership. I think that that is part of health equity,” Symonette said.