Building Collective Black Power in HealthCare | Community Conference

Transcript

TraeAnna Holiday 0:00

All right, thank you so much, everybody, for joining us today. For our health disparities conference, we have a great lineup for all of you to hear from some amazing people that are working in community with regard to our health care system, as many of you know, and the research has shown it so many reports have shown it. But there has been a lack of care with regard to our healthcare systems, and the ways that black families, black individuals are treated across the board. What we've done today is we brought in some folks here that are really experts in their field, that are going to help ground us in the work that they do, because they recognize the pure severity of these healthcare disparities. And also, many of us have been experiencing these on a personal level, as we just witnessed with a shooting that just happened once again, shout out to the victims of the shooter, and also to the shooter, because there was some issues there with regard to mental health. Our experts today that are lined up, will also be able to speak to their work and how they're dealing with these healthcare disparities in their own practices. And through the firms that they've created. The family of Kaloni Bolton,

I want to just say this, I'll be interviewing them, because it's important that their story be shared in long format. They wanted to send their love, and let all of you know that they do want to share their story about how Miss Kristina Williams, her 12 year old daughter was not cared for in the health care system.

With that, I want to be able to sign it off and sign over to my partner Miss Emijah Smith.

Emijah Smith 2:06

Okay, thank you, Trae. That was wonderful. Yeah, just, in love, and in a collective community. My name is Emijah Smith, I am part of the King County Equity Now leadership team. And yes, we do have a fabulous lineup of experts, Black experts with Black expertise, supporting our Black community, as well as supporting the community overall. We're here today to talk about how do you not how do you but just thinking about the collective power that we have in our healthcare system. We're here to highlight some different issues, as Trae has already mentioned, we want to think about how can the community get involved to be part of that collective power to be part of that collective energy? Because it takes us all. To do this together. We understand that there's multiples of issues. Healthcare is attached to education, education is attached to our housing, our housing is attached to our economic development, all these issues and institutions are connected. How do we come together, and really support them all, flip the trajectory of all for our Black community. But today, we're just gonna focus on the aspect of our health care system. So it brings me such great pleasure in this moment to introduce our next- Our first speaker, Dr. Benjamin Danielson that I call dr. D.

Truly a community leader in the healthcare system, or the Black community has named him whether he accepts it or not, he's so humble, has named him as our leader in the in the healthcare field. He is a mentor to my children. He has been my primary care physician for my children. He is just a great person overall. So with that said, I would like to pass this on to Dr. Danielson to share some insights in the healthcare field. Thank you.

Dr. Ben Danielson 4:05

Oh, thank you, Emijah. I can't think of anyone else I'd rather just be introduced by. It's a great honor to be here in community with all of you -with all of you- this is important to me. And I recognize that just coming together like this is part of the process of realizing our power, feeling ourselves healing and strengthening together and stepping up in a different way. I was thinking about what to say today and I was caught up in my own sort of circling thoughts around where we are right now. And I feel really strongly that this is supposed to be a time of reckoning. This should be a time of reckoning for this nation, many centuries long legacy of racism. If this were really a time of reckoning, well then this organization, the individuals around us, the groups, the institutions in health care- all of them would be pausing would be engaging in deep reflection would be looking themselves in the mirror. This should be a time when all of us would be standing up and saying: "Enough. Stop. No more." This should be a time when a shared recognition is lifted up from every corner of our society. This should be a time when individuals and institutions look deeply into their methods of operating with solemn and ardent purpose, looking deeply enough to recognize all those layers of that hateful onion that we call racism. If this were really a time of reckoning, well, then there should be a time when our Black communities and brown communities and our other oppressed communities all stand up and see our institutions vigorously and honestly taking on this task. That said, our Black communities could be in a position to arc and advise the progress these institutions are making, rather than continue to need to scream at the top of our lungs for justice to be initiated. This should be a time when organizations look deep and see whether their leadership and their culture and their policies have driven them straight toward oppression and marginalization, silencing and errasure and harm. This should be a time when rather than flowering but empty statements from institutions about anti racism are not the thing we tolerate anymore. We should see our institutions taking full responsibility for their harms. We should see our institutions naming the roots of those harms with complete acknowledgement of their culpability. If this were really a time of reckoning, well, then institutions would be naming the ways in which they would shift power out of their hands and into the control of Black communities. There'd be naming followed, following the advice and voice of community just how they would be accountable if those actions were to fall short. They would be asking our communities, "what reparations do we owe you?" If this were a time of reckoning, our health care institutions would be asking us "what reparations do we owe you?" If this were truly a time of reckoning organizations and legislative bodies would know that the communities most impacted by legacies, long mistreatment from those organizations, and legislations, those same communities know best how to correct those wrongs. If this were truly a time of reckoning, our systems, education, housing, employment, health care, and more, would recognize the right now, further harm is still happening to our communities. And they would say to themselves "Enough. No more. We must do this differently now." And we must have the blueprints based on community voice to construct a different reality when a compressive harm of this time of isolation of COVID of economic injury and health risk. finally over what society will we want to see or recognize that we can't complacently wait and return to the conditions that we used to call normal that were harming our bodies so terribly for eons before there was a thing called a novel Coronavirus. And this was truly a time of reckoning, we'd be moving along this path of reflecting and acknowledging and accountability and transforming our organizations and our infrastructure in a community centering anti racist humanitarian manner. My head hangs a little bit but only for a moment, only for a moment, when I say that this is not a path that I have seen us on yet. When I say the path I've seen in local health care in the last few years, has been toward racism and not away. It has lifted up privilege, not equity. The deepening corporatization of healthcare has further abandoned our beloved communities with hubris.

Our health care system overall has shown that it is catastrophicly under resourcing public health and criminally hoarding resources in the health care delivery realm. Look at the practices of granting immediate access to COVID vaccines from major donors of hospitals, while our community folks if they want the vaccine by themselves in vaccine deserts. They look a lot like the food deserts. They look a lot like the affordable housing deserts. They look a lot like the living wage deserts all around us. I guess our healthcare system is in some ways, just another manifestation of the brokenness of all the systems around us, but that doesn't let them off the hook. Especially because the life saving and life threatening power our healthcare systems can hold over us and can wield. Too many parts of our healthcare system is ill is sick with racism and despite saying things like, quote, we know we have work to do un quote, greatest understatement in the history of healthcare, they still don't really acknowledge it. We have leaders who either can't see where they are, where they've gone wrong or don't think they have gone wrong, because even in addressing concerns about institutional problems, they're continuing to make the same mistakes and cause the same problems. We have cultures and policies in healthcare that turned out the same results, marginalization, erasure, silencing, and just straight up harm to our bodies, even as they're being called to account. We have people in institutional power, who make the mistake of thinking of scarcity, who hoard power at the expense of equity, hoard power, especially now as it becomes more possible that they may someday be soon held to account they hold on to their power to the last group. They seek to continue to own and control the process of assessing the changes that they need to make. We see these things play out every day, we see those things playing out today. We see these things, and they don't get by us. They don't get past our view. We are watching you, healthcare system. We are watching our hospitals and our systems and we know how they function. We see how power structures seek to use Black and brown to do their fighting for them. We see you. We see that they would surely pit Black people against Black people if they could. But we see through that. Our Black communities see through those tactics, our broader communities see through those tactics, we see through all of that. We see past the figurative and the symbolic gestures towards equity. We see past that we see past the big words without measurable change attached to them. We see past that. We say enough, no more to hospitals and other healthcare entities that don't think they're accountable to us. Don't think they owe our communities quality care with dignity. Like the Odessa brown clinics namesake started us with. They don't think they owe our communities so much more than we have experienced. We say no more to institutions that think that they should own and control community health centers that have been bedrock to Black and brown families for 50 an d 60 years. We are community, we are smart, we're strategic, we're discerning, and we're too aware of this game. We know this game, and we're too aware to be played like this anymore. We are community, we're rising up to take back our community health care, to take back our health, to assert our sovereignty over our own bodies. We are community. We're rising up and we are saying "Enough. No more." So when I think about it, I guess this really is the beginning of a reckoning after all. Thank you.

Emijah Smith 13:06

Thank you, Dr. Danielson. That was powerful. Wow, that was amazing. That moves me through my body. So if I felt that, I just can imagine how that has moved our audience and our viewers today to really hear the deep peace around not only the reckoning, as our community understands, and we see. And we know, and we have been patient, we have tried and worked around it. But it's no more, are we willing to accept it. And as Dr. Danielson speaks into the health care system, I want to draw attention to all the others that Dr. Davidson is speaking to the transformation that must occur. I love that question. You should you be asking: how do we provide reparations? How do we give back? So thank you, that was powerful. And for our community members and our audience members who are seeing this right now, there are letters that have been going out and the support that is needed to hold our healthcare institutions accountable. Please sign on to those letters in the community. We'll have more on the KCEN, King County Equity Now, website where you can access those. But in the meantime, this particular conference is about building the collective power to move us to true equity. And so we need you and you'll be hearing me say these things throughout the rest of the conference. So with no further ado, I would like to transition to our next wonderful speaker Danisha Jefferson-Abye . Thank you.

Danisha Jefferson-Abye 14:57

Community members. My name is Dennis Jefferson-Abye, I'm the founding director of the Tubman Center for Health and Freedom. I'm also a graduate student at the School of Public Health at the University of Washington, working on a degree with a concentration in health systems and policy. I also plan on pursuing a DNP next. I'm Black, white, and Native, I grew up in Seattle. I was a local organizer in the 90s here in Seattle and have since focused on regional and national campaigns across the country. Mostly, almost entirely, health justice related. I was invited here today to talk about the Tubman Center for Health and Freedom. We are a new organization. The Tubman Center for Health and Freedom right now is a health justice organization that's building our capacity to open as a community health care clinic in four years. This clinic, we actually launched this organization four years earlier than anticipated. It was the call of the community that brought this forth. We were planning to launch the Tubman Center for Health and Freedom in another four years. But when the spring of 2020 hit in our community were fighting for their lives on multiple fronts, both with the pandemic, as well as just for our own freedoms in the streets. We saw that the world was beginning to see this intersection of health and freedom in a new way and in a new light. And so it was the community that said now is go time. So we launched the Tubman Center for Health and Freedom in June or May, May or June of 2020. You know, it was a time where Black workers that disproportionately makeup, the essential workforce, and frontline workers, were being asked to go back to work to keep systems going. But at the same time, we were demonized and chastised for being in the streets, fighting for our lives, against systems that make us unwell. And so, it this irony is what prompted the formation, the early formation of the Tubman Center for Health and Freedom. We were very intentional when we started the organization to start with grass roots community members. So it is clear who owns this organization and this body of work. It's clear where our priorities lie, and who is leading the charge. We were also very clear and intentional about where we were going to raise our first money as an organization. Our first fundraising dollars came out of the community. Within six months, we raised $20,000, from grassroots community members, most of which are low income people, within six months time, we can that speaks to the very urgency, and need, and excitement, that the community has around building a health care system that works for us.

It's a big boulder that we're pushing up the mountain here. It's a steep mountain and a huge boulder. But our goal and what we have been working on is examining and overhauling every aspect of the healthcare delivery system. We know that this system does not work for us. We know that we know, as Dr. Danielson stated, the system is sick in too many ways. And so we are doing a complete overhaul of, what would it mean then, to design a system that speaks to our medical and health needs. And health care goes beyond, as it's mentioned been mentioned here already, beyond our clinical needs. What does that really look like? We've been holding community visioning sessions with community members and continue to hold those visioning sessions to really dream up collectively what that looks like. We know that this system, systems in general, make us unwell. This country is built on systems that make us unwell and the healthcare system is just another one of those. We don't believe that we are going to reform our way out of this. We know, we understand as being having a background in organizing we understand complex systems. I understand complex systems theory, I know that we are not going to reform our way out of this: complex systems will continue to adapt and carry out their work. We must build an alternative system and that's what we're working on at the Tubman Center for Health and Freedom. This mainstream medical system is not equipped to address the etiology of our diseases. It is not, it cannot account for the racial weathering or racial traumas that our communities face. And that have they have been facing for generation after generation after generation. The system actually reinforces and compounds those traumas, and that sickness and illness. And those negative consequences perpetuate. So the Tubman Center for Health and Freedom is building a healthcare delivery system that will account for the very sources of our disease. So we talk about caring for people, and addressing the systems that make us unwell, as well as addressing people's clinical needs. And a healthcare system that doesn't address the system is not going to meet the needs of our people. We have to look at the etiology of disease and provide culturally appropriate care. So we're looking at every aspect of the healthcare delivery system and designing it collectively, collaboratively, as a community. We're looking at issues of access, affordability, quality, you name it, we are going with a fine tooth comb and going to design something that works for all of us. We should be considering our health outcomes, considering where the Black community lies when it comes to health inequities. You know, we are the among the sickest populations, when you look at, you know, health outcome after health outcome, you can see our babies are dying more are, you know, whether we're looking at cervical cancer, we have the data. Decades and decades of data, we have the data to show this, you know, we're our health outcomes are very poor, yet we are receiving some of the wackest forms of medicine; we are having to rely on charity care systems that do not work for us. Where the priority has been to cheapen our medicine to, you know, have the cheapest care be bestowed upon the people who are the sickest and need the best. The charity model doesn't work for us, and we deserve better, and we deserve the best. So that's what we're designing. And we look forward to working collaboratively with all of you in our community to design a healthcare system that works for all of us.

We want to invite you all to engage on our website, you can sign up to receive updates on how to be involved with the Tubman Center for Health and Freedom. We have a role for everyone. Currently, we are entirely volunteer ran. We will be having staff, we're building our staff out beginning this spring. But we have been and are still currently 100% volunteer ran. So we have room at the table for everyone. We invite you to come build with us. Our health and freedom are intertwined with all of yours. And so we look forward to working with you. We also want to invite you to engage in our community visioning sessions, we'll continue to have those over the next few months and years. We invite you to come dream with us. And because we know this is a huge lift. It can't go without being said that we're inviting you to also put your money where your where your values are. We know this is a $20 million project. We have raised $20,000, from grassroots community members in a matter of months. And we want to invite you to go ahead and donate to the Tubman Center for Health and Freedom through our website as well. So with that, thank you so much. Emijah, I'll turn it back to you.

Emijah Smith 24:18

Thank you Danisha. That was with great gratitude. Just really powerful. Back to back, back to back. I love it. What I wanted to also share and highlight, if you feel the sense of the energy, we're calling to accountability, our healthcare system. But now we have just learned in our community that we have the energy, the organizing, to create something not only again, but even better. That can be owned by the community. Just wanted to do a quick call out to our community, or on behalf of our community. We want to just call out that we want our Odessa Brown Clinic. Odessa Brown Clinic was founded on the needs of the Black community and the Black community wants that clinic back. Along with the Carolyn Downs clinic. There has been some great news that the particular leadership there is being asked to be removed. And that looks like that's happening. And I want to high five and just congratulate all the organizing that made that occur. But the Black community still want to Odessa Brown and Carolyn Downs. We don't want symbolic rhetoric. We don't want symbolic jargon, that we hear all the time that just drools out of leadership's mouth. We want that returned to the Black community with a total financial investment and expertise to help a community transition team set up these clinics for long term financial stability, and quality health care. We can no longer trust the health care system with the lives of our precious children, our precious elders, and our precious community. And again, I want to reiterate that call to action that Danisha just shared: we want to pour into a healthcare system that is set up by us, and for us, and knows how to care for us. So I call you all to send, your energy, your sweat equity, your financial support to the Tubman Help Center. Thank you. So with that said, I would love to pass this along to our next guests and expert, Sybill Hyppolite. I've had a chance to work with Sybill on policy and legislative ways to really get our community involved and work for healthcare, or to to advance our healthcare systems. So with with honor, Miss Sybill, the floor is yours.

Sybill Hyppolite 26:50

Thank you so much Emijah, so great to be here with you. Trae Holiday, Danisha, Dr. Ben, this is a really beautiful group of folks. So thank you so much. So like Emijah said, my name is Sybill Hyppolite. I'm here with the African American Health Board. I also work at the Washington State Labor Council where I'm the Legislative Director. I'm going to spend my time really focusing on African American Health Board and some of the work that we're doing. So we are a group of Black folks that are pushing for policy and systems change to improve our health. We see ourselves as experts in Black health. And that is primarily because we are Black people who know our own experiences in health care and the challenges that we faced, that Danisha and Dr. Ben spoke so eloquently about. Our group also includes people who know healthcare and public health systems from the inside. People like health care workers, doctors, people who have worked in public health agencies. At the African American Health Board, community healing and community building is really at the center of our work. So everything we do, we try to bring love, and a strong "for us, by us," kind of aesthetic to the work. I just want to talk about some of the things that we've been working on. We recently hosted an event on Black folks and COVID. In that event, we shared information that really puts together our ancestral health and knowledge with clinical knowledge, you know, that we have as healthcare workers. We talked about how we can support each other, how we can support ourselves through this pandemic. And we spent some time inviting community to envision, how can we empower each other and work together, and what is our vision for health and love through through this time that is especially hurting us and hurting our community. We've also been working to share information about COVID that is for and by the Black community. I don't know if it's possible to share a link but I will direct folks to our Instagram account. It is our Instagram handle @AfricanAmericanHB. So you can check us out there for more information about what we're doing what we're up to. We have some more events for the Black community coming up, where you can learn more about us and our work. So please check there for more information. Another thing that we're working on at the African American Health Board is policy, and trying to use that space to push for more accountability, push for better health and health care for our communities. As folks have said the healthcare system is not accountable to us. Right now healthcare is really run like a corporate game. Hospitals are merging with each other and doing their best to gain more market share. And we know that some hospitals also own venture capital funds and for profit companies and all this other weird stuff that doesn't really seem to be focused on their mission of providing care. And as health systems are getting bigger, what does that mean for us? It means prices for healthcare going up, and the quality of healthcare is going down. I'll share an example of what it looks like when healthcare is prioritizing profit instead of people. And that example is Providence Health Care. That's a system run that runs Swedish hospitals and run in seven different states. Providence is a company that has over $14 billion in cash and I say a billion with a "b". They are investing that money using Wall Street tactics. And they can make $1 billion in profit in a year just off their investments alone. That's not even talking about the money they make in healthcare. In 2020, Providence received a lot of federal money intended for hospitals struggling in the pandemic, so they got over a billion dollars in help from the from the government. These are not people that need help, right? They already have enough. And as some hospitals in their system, like Swedish, have been engaging in meaningful distribution of PPE,

and strong COVID worker protections. So Swedish is doing pretty good, but some of the other Providence facilities are really struggling. Workers have to take unpaid leave if they have unconfirmed COVID symptoms. And they don't have equitable access to PPE in a system that has, you know, billions of dollars in cash just sitting around. So I want to talk a little bit more about what this corporate unaccountable healthcare means for the Black community, both as patients and also as workers. So on the patient side, as we've talked about, Black folks have a long history of racism in healthcare that we've experienced. We still see that anti-Blackness today. And so our distrust of the system is truly valid. And our distrust can change only when health care becomes accountable to the needs of our community. And that accountability will be a fight. As one first step, we really need to be able to follow the money. And a lot of the financial details in healthcare are really hidden. So some of the answers we need are "What trends can we see in the care of black folks across our diverse identities, like disability status, or gender or income". Another thing we need to look at is that, most of our hospitals are nonprofit, even Providence with a billion with a B is a nonprofit system. So since nonprofit hospitals do not pay taxes, they're supposed to provide benefits to our community. And we need to know how our community benefits actually serving the Black community. So that's why the African American Health Board is pushing for a bill on health systems transparency, it's in Olympia right now. It's HB 1272. And it will shed a light on how money is moving in healthcare. And this is really a foundation for holding hospitals accountable to the Black community. Again, this is not the endpoint, this is going to be a long fight. But this is a first step that we can take, to at least be able to see what they're even doing. Another thing that I want to highlight is workers in the healthcare system. So, many Black folks in Washington work in health care, you probably have an auntie, a cousin, or a friend who works in a hospital or clinic. And we know that a lot of Black people who've gotten COVID actually work in health care and related fields. In Washington, we have pretty strong workplace safety laws. But unfortunately, they're really hard to enforce, especially during the pandemic. And especially for Black workers. We are at the highest risk for employer retaliation, when we talk about pandemic safety at work. So many people are scared to come forward. And when they do file complaints, state agencies don't really have the capacity to resolve them to help. Our workplace safety laws really have good intent. But now we need to have the impact to match it. And so that's why the African American Health Board is prioritizing the Worker Protection Act. That is a bill with a number of HB 1076. And that would create a new way for all workers to get justice when employers violate laws. It covers health and safety, minimum wage, and anti discrimination laws. Workers would be able to take their employer to court on behalf of all affected workers. And then any penalties from the case would be paid to impacted workers, and also the state agencies that help enforce the law. So that would mean workers would get their justice. And also there would be improved capacity for our state to enforce these laws that we have. And the Black community needs the Worker Protection Act, especially health care workers. Hospitals are putting Black workers in harm's way. The Black community's access to vaccines has been slow. A more contagious version of the virus is here, in our county, in our state. And we need a way to hold health systems accountable for protecting our safety at work to slow down the spread of the virus in our community. This is urgent, and I hope that you all will join us in in supporting this bill so that we can we can be safer.

Thank you.

Emijah Smith 36:01

Yes, thank you Sybill. This is powerful. If y'all didn't know, there's no more excuses. Now. You know, we have the Health Leadership. And we have the health expertise right here, Seattle and King County, doing this work every day diligently, again, for the Black community and for all communities. Because when we center around the Black experience, we uplift every all the other experiences. We are a plethora of expertise. I'm just I'm just excited. But let me go ahead and get on to the next speaker. I would like to transition us on to Jackie Vaughn, who was the Executive Director of Surge Northwest. And you could please correct the name Jackie, if I said it incorrect. But thank you for being here.

Jackie Vaughn 36:53

Thank you, Emijah and King County Equity Now, for having me. It's an honor to be on the panel with all of you today. As Emijah said, my name is Jackie Vaughn and I'm the Executive Director of Surge Reproductive Justice. And we are an organization based here in Seattle and King County that's working on different issues through a reproductive justice lens. Where we're centering Black women, Black femmes, Black, queer and trans folks for solutions that come from a bottom up approach. And really looking at the intersection of racism and gender based violence, and particularly in access to health care, and reproductive health care. At Surge, we like to follow what we call our thought lineage, the ancestors, or the movement leaders that were the shoulders that we stand on. And so for us, one of those movement leaders and elders is Angela Davis and her work around looking at how all of the systems in the US, not just the prison industrial complex, were built for domination, white supremacy, and are inherently violent, particularly to Black folks living here in the US. And so for us, we look at the health care system, and then inherent violence, racism, and gender based violence that we see operating throughout the healthcare system. And thinking about, if we were to actually take down all of these systems that are currently operating, and rebuild them together, what does that world look like? And for us, that's what the reproductive justice framework is, as it allows us to name, who are we explicitly centering in our work, for a movement that rises from the bottom up. And for us, that's Black women, Black femmes, Black queer and trans folks in our communities. And so we also like to use some of the, I feel like, the knowledge that Miss Mary Flowers, that I'm sure many of you know, in our community and the work that she's done in the network of the Village of Hope and People's Institute. Miss Mary will always say that we use issues to organize our community, not organize our communities around issues, because issues come and go. And for us, how we're trying to put that into practice at Surge, is we just launched our Black perinatal health campaign here in King County, where we're really going to be working with our community to hear the narratives and stories about folks experience, as being Black birthing folks here in Seattle King County, as well as our Black birth workers, who are supporting our communities in a way that is outside of the medical industrial complex, in a way that brings as much of the birthing process back into the control of our communities that we want care that is for and by. And so for us, we're going to be working on a year long campaign in which we really build deep relationships in our community and understanding, so that we can zoom out of what's happening when people are in the health care centers and getting the care as pregnant folks, to really thinking about how racism and gender based violence is impacting the social determinants of health. Which we know directly impacts the outcomes of Black birthing people and their children. We like to, when we do reproductive justice trainings at Surge, we try to show people that reproductive justice is everything. It's as much as what's happening inside the healthcare center as what it takes for people to even walk into the healthcare system. And so for us, we'll say that Black perinatal health, Black maternal health can be everything from access to transportation, access to living wage jobs,

support on your jobs, access to childcare, and everything that we need for us to be healthy and thriving in our communities is everything we need for our birthing people and their children to have healthy outcomes. But as a Black folks living in the US, we know that all of that is impacted by anti Blackness, white supremacy, and gender based violence. And so for us really trying to dig into: what is causing this, and how it's happening, and to think about what are community led solutions? And what are the ways that we're going to bring back community care into our communities, as we still work to take down these systems and rebuild them in a way for everyone. So to hear the work that people are doing here on this panel, I'm seeing so many connections. I definitely want to chat with folks offline, because I think that the more we get tighter as a community and build our network and make these connections, like the work is happening everywhere. And I'm just so excited to see people having a discussion on access to health care, and health equity, because I feel like in our communities, it's something that we easily will push the side like, I'll go to the doctors later, or I'll look at that I'll look at it later. But it's like our health is important. And when we start to be able to take care of ourselves, we can take care of our community. So thank you again, for having me today.

Emijah Smith 42:35

Thank you, Jackie, you did a wonderful job. Really actually bringing this together on building that collective power. And we have all done a great job of like, networking with each other in this very moment. That's how we built the collective power. Having the conversations, seeing the important connections, and also seeing those connections on different levels, from policy to actually accountability for the the racism that's happening in institutions. From really, from really getting some deeper understanding of like, how these health institutions actually work. They're a business. But the outside messaging is not that and so - and seeing how we, as a collective as community can actually do better, and should do better, and how, we've heard today how we can do better in our healthcare system. So I just want to say thank you, to you all thus far. Well, we have one more panelist at this point, who's really here to speak to the community that's often forgotten in our spaces. So I would like to highlight and transition to Miss Ayan Musse. Thank you.

Ayan Musse 43:53

Hello. Are y'all able to hear? Okay, thank you. Um, so I'm really honestly, first and foremost, thank you, Emijah. And thank you everyone, for even putting this together. It really, really, I came on - on many levels to talk about how COVID is affecting our communities. And it saddens me because of really what I'm about to share is not new. It's one of those situations where you can see the vaccine is being distributed, but it's questionable how it's being distributed to the Black community. I sit at a table that just recently started at Department of Health. It actually has over 400, almost 500 community members so I can see on this, on the Governor, and how we're all competing for different things. But on the same front, I'm almost appalled at -- when are we really going to be listened to? And how's this really affecting folks? The most marginalized folks. And the ones I'm really going to talk about are the brothers and sisters, in the institutions that are already locked up, and really forgotten about by elected officials. Because they're not forgotten about by community, they're not forgotten about by their loved ones. They're not forgotten about by the community members that drive daily to them. They're not forgotten about by the brothers and sisters that came from those institutions, that are doing the work in the community. So they're not forgotten. But clearly, they're forgotten by the elected officials. It saddens me that we haven't even began to have a conversation about, when we talk about inequity. How are you going to -- how are you going to call somebody, first of all, that you're taking care of them? Not that you ever do? There's so much layers on that one. But how's healthcare really being provided for people in the inside? That's not only a question, but it's something that even before COVID, we needed to really step back and ask ourselves, what was really happening in there and were our community's needs being met inside. I'm tired of going to different tables. I've been in so many committees dealing with this. And feels like DOC just keeps pushing us around and never really answering. We've had a number of deaths, from Airway Heights to Stanford Creek to Monroe, you name it, there's not a prison, it feels like that hasn't had a death. When is enough? How many people that are in the system have to die before you recognize? Here you have a community members that are already locked up. They're as close as you can humanly be, because it's already overcrowded. You're not doing anything for them. How are you treating them? How's that humane? How's it humane to give somebody a death sentence when they didn't get a death sentence by anybody else but us right now. Because as a, as a community, when we are stand byers, we're also participating in it. When our governor doesn't do anything, he himself participated in it. So we have to be really cautious of what we're asking and think about what we're saying. And how's that affecting community? How's that affecting the community members that are still out here? Who, that's their loved one. But also, how's it affecting community members that are inside? What, what are we saying about folks? And I know it's a system that wasn't really designed to like, do anything. But is that really, are we now saying that that's real? Because that's how it looks to this end? I keep getting the push around. Sorry.

Emijah Smith 48:21

Ayan, can you share some numbers with the community? Some folks don't know what DOC means and --

Ayan Musse 48:26

Department of Correction. And the numbers are, and it's, it's right now. I have for Stafford, and this is within this month, the month just started. Airway heights. I believe it was what, and I can look it up but they've had one death already. Within this month. I'm just going to talk about this month, Stafford Creek lost another person. What are we on the 10th? Today? How many have to die? And every month we have four or five deaths, if not more. So how many? The question for me is, if this was anywhere else, any other bodies, what would have happened? And how are we really treating humans? I'm sick of it. I'm sick of listening to family members cry about the inequity. I'm sick of parents being scared for their children. Last night, we had a parent that came through the village that was talking about her young, her person being in there. You know what, even King County Youth Jail has a community member that dealt with COVID and didn't have COVID and that's juvie. Okay, so we have to really think about what -- what are we saying yes to? And that's the reality and then if one us has it, I know others will have it. So I really get us to stop a minute and really have a conversation of: Okay, incarceration is one thing, but what are we saying yes to? Are we saying yes to death? Are we actually committing our community members to die? And as a governor, are you saying yes to that? Is that what you're saying? Because really, I need you to think about that question. And I need every elected official to think about that. Just because they cannot vote you out, does not mean the rest of us cannot. So I really need folks to take this seriously. And I'm sick and tired of DOC covering itself, Department of Correction. Correction? Even the name is a joke to me. I don't know what you're correcting when you can't be corrected on anything. But that's a whole different topic.

Emijah Smith 50:49

Well, thank you,

Ayan Musse 50:49

I'm really as a black woman asking y'all to love us love us differently. And I must step back and hand it over.

Emijah Smith 50:57

Thank you, Queen Ayan, for sharing that. You know, for folks who are not aware of this public health, there's a public health crisis in our community overall with regard to COVID-19. But it's even more compounded in the correction systems, where there's the men's corrections, the youth corrections, the women's corrections, it is more compounded in those spaces. And those people are community members who are inside of there have been on lockdown for a month. No movement, poor food, poor hygiene, poor accessibility. So when we're speaking to say: okay, people are having, whether they committed a crime or not, are the innocent or not truly, they're in that institution. And so we're saying we're okay with having to, you know, be accountable for a situation, but are we, but are we really actually saying, we want to put all these people to death? Because there wasn't a COVID issue within that system, something brought it inside of there. And unfortunately, in the Black community, we are disproportionately represented in those systems. From the juvenile level, to the adult system. And so we are calling on all our communities in all these aspects, in every single aspect to come together and see what we can do -- network with each other, create something and put the pressure on our elected officials to do the right thing, to think outside of the box, and look and see the humanity in all of us. Not just those who are incarcerated, but in all of us. Because when we walk into these health institutions, we are afraid. There's trust issues with the Black community in the health institutions for a reason. It is historical. It is long, happened, tested on, being abused, being mistreated, poor quality care. That's been constant, and that no longer can occur. No longer. So I just want to say thank you to the panel of experts again, y'all bring hope to our community. Because when our leadership speaks, and our experts speak, we have something to bring to the table. When you're just that mother going in to take your child to the doctor, when you're just that individual who just wants to be seen for for a wheelchair. We have some back and if our leadership speaks, we feel stronger in speaking. I would like to transition this over to TraeAnna so that we can close this out. I appreciate everyone who has, you know, joined us today. Thank you TraeAnna.

TraeAnna Holiday 53:35

Thank you so much, Emijah, and all of these amazing panelists. I do want to lift up some of the questions that we have in the chat while we still have some amazing experts on the line. Some of our team has, shout out to our tech team, we appreciate you guys in the background, trying to answer some questions, but there's a few that I think maybe our panelists could also speak to. One of the questions here is: What steps are needed to get more clinics and practitioners in the community? What can be done for those of us who are in public health to get involved? Do any one of our panelists, I was thinking, maybe Danisha? If you want to be able to speak to that, or Sybill or Jackie, either one of you guys that would like to kind of speak to what steps are needed to get more clinics and practitioners in the community and what can be done for those who are in public health to get involved.

Danisha Jefferson-Abye 54:34

Okay, I can take a first stab at it and someone else can definitely add on, jump in. What are the things the Tubman Center for Health and Freedom is looking at is how, you know, how are we going to staff this facility? Since our medical schools and training programs are not adequately training practitioners to address our community needs. And so we've been looking at the provider pipeline and considering ways in which we can get members of our community trained up in these positions. And so we are actually actively working on a scholarship opportunity now, to send people through a degree program where they would then end up with a doctorate in East Asian medicine. And so we're partnering with a school now. And that work is in progress. In addition to that, you know, in terms of public health workers that, you know,

I think,

you know, that's a challenge. You know, the world of academia in general. You know, it doesn't often start where, the conversations don't often start where they need to start. I think going back to the community, and, you know, taking a seat and listening is where, you know, public health officials can can really begin to have, you know, these transformative conversations and changes. And certainly anyone else should weigh in there.

TraeAnna Holiday 56:12

Thank you so much. Danisha. Actually, that was a really great, well rounded way of getting to it. Jackie, did you want to add to that answer?

Jackie Vaughn 56:21

Yeah, I would just add that some of the work that we're seeing that Surge is that we're working on the state level policy on Medicaid reimbursements for doulas. And for us, doulas definitely fall within the community health worker model. But what we're seeing is that Medicaid at the federal level is working to expand what can qualify for Medicaid funding. And the idea of Medicaid reimbursements for doulas, you know, is very attractive because it can open up access to folks in our community who may not have the ability to be able to privately pay for doulas. As well as making doula work sustainable for Black doulas in our communities so that they can actually not have to do these things on a sliding scale fee or pro bono, which is what we often see. Especially compared to white doulas who can make a living off of this. And so for us, I would say for people in public health, what I feel like we will be seeing coming down the line around public policy is thinking about if Medicaid is going to be expanding and opening up their idea of who would be able to call out qualify to be reimbursed through Medicaid, we need to think about what that means for people in our community who are going into that system. Because with the Medicaid reimbursements for doulas, there's all these technical things that would be more for a medical provider, that they're trying to apply to people in our community, that are community health workers. And that is making it almost to the point where those funds are not as attractive, because if it comes with all these stipulations, and regulations, that doesn't work well for our community. We saw what happened with the history of midwifery. And when midwifery became a licensed profession and what that did to the Black midwives in the South. And for us, the coalition that we have of doulas working on this policy, like we are doing our best to make sure that the outcome of this will not replicate what happened with Black midwives in the South when midwifery became licensed. And so there's this tension of: we know that these dollars can pay for the work that all of our community members can be doing. Things that our aunties, our cousins, our sisters are already doing to support us. But, how do we do that in a way where that money is leveraged so that we can do what we know best, but not have to be regulated by the state, which we know is inherently racist. And so at least for us, it is kind of been a little bit of a puzzle. And I would definitely welcome others in public health policy to really think about what does that mean to access those dollars, but in a way that doesn't come with their restrictions.

TraeAnna Holiday 59:15

Amazing, Jackie and Danisha. Thank you both for those amazing answers. And one of the things that I want to offer in terms of some of the steps that are needed to get more clinics and practitioners into the community. Africatown started a workgroup almost two years ago, around Black health and wellness. And I know many of you have been on that workgroup. It is every second Saturday of the month, an open call, where we really are bringing together amazing Black practitioners across the spectrum of health care, to share their practice, to also convene together and figure out ways of addressing and connecting with community members so that their services are widely well known and well utilized. I invite many of you, it will be coming up this Saturday, it's from 10, to 11am. And sometimes it goes till 12, just depends on how many people we have on the call. But we really do want to open that up. Again, when we talk about experts in our community, we've known that it was on us to really find solutions to a lot of this. And ultimately, that is what that Black health and wellness workgroup has been doing for a long time. So we invite you to join that call, the link will be on our website, you guys will be able to join there. Our techs or making sure that you guys have access to the link this Saturday so that you can join. Another question here is, in what ways can political organizations best help to support these bills? And I know that we may have several folks that want to jump in here, but I really was thinking, Miss Ayan, if you want to talk a little bit about what folks can do in terms of getting these bills across the finish line. Do you have any suggestion?

Emijah Smith 1:01:01

Trae, I was wondering if Sybill could be a great responder for that one in particular around the political aspect, being with the Labor Council.

TraeAnna Holiday 1:01:09

Thank you.

Sybill Hyppolite 1:01:11

Hey, thanks so much. Yes. So I don't know if it's been posted yet. But the African American Health Board is doing some story collection from our community to hear what are people's experience of racism in the healthcare system. And that is really critical to lifting up the importance of these bills, because people need to see why it impacts us and how it's an equity issue. And so I think that's a really good way to get plugged in. If you are a political organization, please have people share their stories and get connected that way. So I would say that's a start. And then I would also add that the Health Board has a strong focus on messaging to community, I saw questions in the chat about, you know, campaigns on knowing your numbers and things like that if people have energy to work on that we would love to partner with you on it. So I think probably the easiest way is to plug in through that story forum. And we would love to connect with you. Thank you so much

TraeAnna Holiday 1:02:14

Thank you for that Sybill, absolutely appreciate your answer there. And I did open it up for Miss Ayan. If miss Ayan is still on. Do you have something you'd like to add to that at all?

Ayan Musse 1:02:27

I'm good. I'm good, Sybill covered both of us. So thank you. The one thing that I would actually add, it isn't more. I would encourage everyone to connect with Olympia: make calls, pressure people, because without pressure, we cannot cannot be heard. So no, it's not a bill. But it is one that you can simply do: email folks, call folks. Start putting pressure in Olympia. But more importantly, tell your Governor: you did not sentence people to death. Therefore, serve and help them. They are in dying need, because each day that you step back and become a person that doesn't take commitment to making this call. It's another life lost. So we can't afford it as a community. So please, please, please, I appeal to you: have the heart to make the email have the heart to call. So thank you.

TraeAnna Holiday 1:03:38

Thank you, Miss Ayan. Absolutely. As we always say: It's on us to be a part of the civil engagement process. We are the ones that are able to make Seattle and Washington State great. And honestly, it's on all of us. Miss Sybill did connect a little bit to one of the questions here in our chat around how we can do a better job of getting our people to understand health as an understanding of their numbers, glucose, A1C, kidney, heart blood pressure, that these numbers really can save our lives. And a know your numbers campaign would be great. She spoke to that a bit. And I also think that this is something that we've talked about many times in the Black health and wellness workgroup, that it is important that we start to bring our collective practitioners together, so that we can create a combined campaign around a lot of this. So thank you for that question there. And I think that there's a lot of us, that we can come together to make that happen. One of the last questions here and I'll throw this out to all panelists. What are your thoughts on dental therapists, someone asked? If anyone has an answer for that?

Emijah Smith 1:04:52

I'm happy to answer or address that. I'm not a true panelist, but had a lot of years and learning about the dental therapy. As well as a, you know, been in Olympia around it. So, dental therapy for those who are not familiar with it, it is similar to like, bringing in a professional into the dental system. It's similar to having a nurse practitioner that works with a physician, a medical doctor per se, bringing them on to the team. So a dental therapist is similar to that, where they they're brought onto the team. They don't do the high level, like surgeries or whatever, for dental, but they do take care of like general cleanings and I think some cavities. My understanding also around dental therapy, that currently that is something that's happening in Washington State, on our tribal lands, where the community is taking care of their community, and that there's current training systems or opportunities in our state, so that folks can get certified to do so. So when I think of dental therapy, and think about the inequities in our healthcare system, really, if you think about Medicaid systems, and who will accept that as insurance in our state, you start to see the disparities. Because if you're poor, and oftentimes it's our Black and brown and oppressed communities, who have lower wage income and salaries, are relying on Medicaid for their health care, insurance and coverage. And what ends up happening is that, although we do have providers in the community who accept that insurance, oftentimes our private medical businesses, you know, have to take, they can't survive on that is what I understand. So bringing someone into the team would actually increase and advance racial equity, to allow those who are on Medicaid to receive dental services, rather than suffering. I cannot speak on behalf of King County Equity Now, that's not like a campaign that we've stepped into to say how do we, we support or not, but we definitely believe in equity. So if there are ambitions or activities to, you know, reduce the inequities in our healthcare system, we definitely want to look into that. But definitely our community, Black community, is one of those communities where we're seeing some of those inequities. And, you know, we need a system that can support making sure our community is being cared for. And we also need a system that will allow our community, our Black community, to build our own professionalism to serve our own community. So if dental therapy provides that, y'all should look into it. Those are my thoughts. And Trae, I was hoping that we can give Dr. Danielson opportunity before we close out to share some words.

TraeAnna Holiday 1:07:47

Absolutely. Dr. Danielson, are you still on? I think he may have left, I was looking for him before we closed officially. But this has been amazing. We really thank all of our panelists, everybody who brought their expertise to the table today, to share with our community, the fact that we recognize wholeheartedly these disparities in health care across the board. We also know that it really is on us to come up with the solutions, as so many have said here today, that they are doing the work because nobody was doing the work. They had to step up, they had to have a culturally responsive approach to understanding a lot of the nuances that are faced, in the Black community in particular, with regard to the way that we actually show up and care for our people. This has been an amazing panel. We over here at King County Equity Now, we thank all of the audience for tuning in today, for listening to this amazing panel, and what they had to bear with all of us. Again, this is a situation that we are all in. Because when we end up experiencing these health disparities, there really is an effect that that attaches to all of us, because we know that it is through us that we're going to get these things done. So thank you all for joining us today. I know we went over a little bit, but we wanted to make sure we got those questions answered for you all. We appreciate you guys for signing on. And we really, really appreciate all of the amazing panelists for sticking with us and being here today. Thank you all have a great day.