[Music] [Music] [Music] For the record, my name is John Fitzgerald, District 3 City Counselor, and I'm the chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Public Health, Homelessness, and Recovery. Today is
June 12th, 2025 and the time is about 6:20 if I'm not mistaken, 6:22. Uh, this hearing is being recorded. Written comments may be sent to the committee email at ccccc.healthboston.gov
and will be made part of the record and available to all counselors. Public testimony will be taken at the end of the hearing. Individuals will be called on in the order in which they signed up and will have two minutes to testify. If you are interested in testifying in
person, please add your name at the signup sheet near the entrance. And is it still at the Yes, the top. Yep. All right. So, it's still at the at the doorway at the top of the auditorium now. Um, also, I know it is a little bit hot today, folks. We do have fans in the back and I believe up front here. Uh so
if everyone starts to get overheated and feels they need to cool down, you can try and step in front of a fan if you'd like. Um and there's some water in the back as well. Uh today's hearing is on docket number 036, order for a hearing on health access in
Hyde Park. This matter was sponsored by councilors Enrique Pepen and Ruth C. Luigi and referred to the committee on January 29th, 2025. Today I'm joined by my colleagues in order of arrival. Uh myself, councelor
John Fitzeld and councelor Enrique Pepen of High Park. And at the moment that is it. Um we'll now move on to opening remarks. And uh Council Pepen, this is uh your district and your docket. So I will
allow you to please have an opening remark. Take as long as you need. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to start by thanking Ethan and the and Megan and the entire city council center staff team for coming out tonight to set up this off-site hearing here in High Park. Thank you to the healthc care for
all for supporting all kinds of public health efforts. They're located just outside of the auditorium with resources. Thank you to the High Park Health and Wellness Center Steering Committee for keeping the effort alive with fresh energy, expertise, and care
for High Park. And of course, I want to thank the High Park community, the residents, for coming out tonight to share their testimony on the subject and for advocating for the needs of their community. As we know, High Park is one of the few neighborhoods in the city of Boston
without a community health center. And boy, do we need it. High Park residents have higher rates of diabetes, heart diseases, and other chronic and acute illnesses. Hide Park ranks in the top three of the neighborhoods with the highest rate of diabetes related
hospitalization. Hyde Park along with Madapan which is right next door have two of the highest asthma emergency visits for children. It is very important for all of us here in Hide Park to receive a center where community members can safely and
securely access the resources they need to address and treat uniquely intense challenges our community faces. You know, I I'm I'm going to go off script for a little bit because as a kid growing up in Boston, the places where I went to go get care were the community
health centers. Going to the Martha Elliott Community Health Center to the Brookside Community Health Center and being able to get I have asthma, so I was able to get treated there for asthma, make sure that I was getting the right resources. And when I think about the children of High Park and the and the and the residents of High Park, seeing that they don't really have that
opportunity, they have to go somewhere else. And we all know that the access to public transportation here is very limited and some people don't h don't own cars. So I want to make sure that we are all able to make to go to a community health center like I did when I was a kid. Now I'm very excited to
begin the hearing and look forward to reflecting the efforts of the community in my decisions at city hall. Thank you all for being here. Thank you. Well done, counselor I would like to now introduce today's
panelists. Uh we have two panels today just so folks know. The first is of the community which is represented up here with us today and the second panel will be from the mayor's administration. Uh and we will have them come up second and each one we will do a round of questions with the counselors uh and then move on
to the next one. Um in the first panel for the community representing we have Dr. Nicole Christian Brathweight. Did you just raise your hand so I know who's I don't know everyone. Nicole, how are you? Uh, Shannon Niles, I'm not here yet. Okay. Uh, Dr. Tia
Martin, hi doctor. How are you? Good to see you as well. Uh, Jessica Paulino. Jessica, how are you? Thanks for being here. Dr. Ashley Porter. Doctor, thank you. Sherma Pierre, Sherman, thank you for being here. Bill
Hennings, Bill, much appreciated. and Marcia Kim Jackson. Marcia, thank you as well. Uh I will now turn it over uh to the panel. I don't know if there's if you guys have figured out an order in which you'd like to do things or you can just start and go right down the line if you will. Uh I assume uh because we
don't have anything set up for presentation, you each all have about a you know three to five minute spiel you'd like to do. Uh and afterwards we will do questions. So um Marcia, if you'd like to start, go right ahead. Thank you. Good evening everyone and thank you so much for being here. Thank you to the council for allowing us this opportunity to really advocate for
ourselves and for our community. My name is Marcia Kim Jackson. I've been a resident of height park for the last 25 years or so and um in the midst of the pandemic in 2020 we had our first virtual meeting as a neighborhood group in West Fairmont Hill. And in that
neighborhood group, we asked residents what they needed to see most happen for the community to really address the issue of equity. And health equity came to the four in a small group breakout led by Dr. Tia Martin. And in that health equity small group, we learned
that there was a strong desire for an health center in Hide Park. And so that launched our work to make that request and now dream a reality. And we, the 15 of us, many of us are here, some of us
are missing um because of other commitments, but we are no no less clear about what we want to see in Hide Park. We, the residents of Hyde Park, respectfully are petitioning you, the community, and the city council for your support and urgent action to fund and
build a dedicated health center in Hyde Park. For decades, our neighborhood has faced significant health disparities and with limited access to equitable health care. We are now one of Boston's
expanding medical deserts. Height Park has endured, as you heard from council Pippen, um high infant mortal mortality rates, high rates of asthma, and mental health burdens. And with over 9,000 residents below the federal poverty line, we're a richly
diverse population. And we need culturally responsive and accessible health care close to home. We have begun efforts since 2021, I would say, in earnest to build a health center. Our meetings are really mostly
around policy and engagement driven. And our work is really to build awareness in the community and build momentum to b to have support for the health center. Our conversations have been with health health leaders, if you will, Boston Medical, um MGB, and the intent is to
really establish a partnership with them to realize this long overdue vision of a health and wellness center in our community because I believe we are really overdue and we are very deserving. Thank you so much. [Applause]
Hi, good evening. Uh, again, my name is Dr. Nicole Christian Brathweight. Sure. Is this better? Okay, thank you. Um, again, my name is Dr. Nicole Christian Brathweight. I am a child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist. I'm originally from Philadelphia, so I'm
still an Eagles fan. I'm just going to put that out there. But I have been a member um of Hyde Park for about nine years. Um and this this this is important to me both personally and professionally. Hide Park is an incredible community, an incredibly
diverse community. It's a it's a wonderful place to raise children, but as has been said, it's a medical desert. It is a completely underserved community. Um, and when we're looking at the the data, um, we know that communities with high rates of black and
Latino um, individuals also have higher rates and disproportional rates of untreated mental illness, untreated substance use and abuse. Um, and the the mental and physical health burdens that require community- based support and intervention. There was even a um a 2018
study that found um Hyde Park had higher rates of anxiety, insomnia, and chronic stress. And we know for sure it's not getting any better um in terms of our stress exposure. Um and ultimately, you know, there's no there's no health without mental health. And as we're
thinking about building this healthcare clinic, we also have to think about integrating mental or behavioral health. Um and ultimately there's there is nowhere for individuals in our community who are suffering from depression,
anxiety, trauma, substance use. Our community recently faced um an unspeakable tragedy, a tremendous loss, and there was nowhere for our community to go to seek support, to seek urgent
behavioral health care, um for parents to manage this trauma, for children to manage the trauma that we lo of the excuse me of our tremendous loss. And studies show that those exposed to traumatic experiences are at increased
risk for PTSD, depression, substance use, and even chronic medical conditions. But the one thing that can make a difference is early intervention. Is having access to these supports before you're in crisis, before you have
to utilize an emergency room for unsafe thoughts or becoming suddenly so depressed that you're not functional or dealing with trauma in a way that it makes it hard, it make becomes pathological. a community clinic um with mental health
services would give families access to behavioral health, parenting support, crisis care again, and therapy. Um and certainly on a a personal note, eight years ago, I gave birth to a very chubby 10-pound baby boy um who is wonderful.
Um but shortly after I suffered from severe postpartum depression and for months I could not find anyone in Hide Park um in Matipan nowhere and nowhere close that would be willing to treat a
postpartum woman suffering from severe depression. And after about three months it got to the point where I became suicidal and I I was I'm a psychiatrist. I'm a full-fledged physician and I could not maneuver our health care system and I
could not find care and postpartum depression is the most common complication of childbirth and people in our community are dying because they do not have access to therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists and I know a lot of this we already know but again
I wanted to drive the point home because I finally found a therapist 45 minutes away by car and I know many of us don't have that luxury and don't have that access to be able to find someone 45 minutes away who would take insurance
and would treat me so that I don't end up a statistic. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Thank you so much for being here and thank you so much for sharing your story. Uh my name is Jessica Pawino. First of all, I'm a
mother. Um, I'm a High Park resident. I'm a community doula, maternal health advocate, and I'm the founder of the EMA project, which is a loss and bereiefment organization right here in High Park, supporting pregnancy and infant loss. Um, I'm also a mother who has
experienced loss, which is my why. Um, access to care is really important. High Park has the highest instance of infant mortality rate. Our population is uh majority black and latinext. And
we know that the majority of black birthing people, indigenous people, Latinx people are facing three to four times the mortality and morbidity rates than our white counterparts. That is my why. Um that's why I think it's important to have care right here in our communities. Um like Sherma, I also
experienced um some mental health issues, postpartum depression, postpartum psychosis after the loss of my son um Eddie Manuel who passed away at 22 days old in the NICU. And I found myself as an educated woman
who spoke uh English, who was fluent in the language, um also without access to care and also without access to culturally competent care and with providers that would listen to me when I was pregnant and I was saying that there
was something wrong, that I felt something was wrong and I was unheard in that. And I think the difference in that would be if I was treated in my community and had relationships with my care providers where I just wasn't going to a hospital and was just a medical record number to someone, but that I'm
actually a person connected to my community that loss impacts everyone around you. And um it is why I'm also a community doula here and offer services at a sliding fee scale because I don't want anyone to go without um advocacy or
care. Um, I'm really grateful to be part of this steering committee and to share testimony with you all today because this work matters. We matter and our lives depend on this. Our lives depend on this and I want to make sure that um
that is heard. Thank you. And good evening um council counselors as well as fellow residents, supporters and friends. Oh, can you guys hear me now? I feel like a Verizon or Sprint commercial. Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? Okay. So, good evening
council members um our fellow residents, supporters and friends of Hide Park. My name is Sherma Pierre. I moved to Boston 22 years ago. 16 of those years has been spent in the Hide Park neighborhood. I am here today as a
member of the health and wellness steering committee, but more importantly as a concerned resident of Hide Park to voice my support for bringing a health center to our neighborhood. Now, this is not something counselors
and friends that's like whimsical for me. is not something I decided on that's needed a year or two or even five years ago when we were at the height of the pandemic. This is something that I have felt passionately about ever since I moved to Hide Park so many years ago.
See, at the time I moved to Hide Park, I worked at Boston Medical Center. My primary role at Boston Medical Center was working with um the licensed and affiliated community health centers. That was when I first learned about the important or the critical role that
health centers play in improving the health and wellness of their patients, their families as well as our overall communities. I would go to so many meetings and trying to figure out because I know in
Boston there are so many health centers. But it always it dawned on me only after I moved here, hey, why not high park? Why not? Why not Hide Park? Why do we not have a health center in height park knowing the critical role and services
that they provide not only in healthcare, dental, I but also the overall wraparound services that they that they provide to um to the residents of the neighborhood. I just wanted to also mention for those
who do not know the very first health center in the nation was actually founded in Boston at Colombia point in Dorchester and I am mentioning this um since the founding of the health center movement
have been serving as a medical home from provide to provide all the services that our resident need. I will also go as far as saying that one of the things that happened when I moved to Hide Park many years ago is realizing
my commute from home and even to doctor's appointment was very difficult and some of you may know this but let me for those of you who do not know let me give you a quick snapshot of what it might look like if you leave where I live trying to get to any appointment
and it could be BMC it could be the Brigham it could be MGH age. You take the number 24 bus to Madapan station. You take the trolley to the red line. You take the red line to Ashmont. And you take a bus to BMC. It's no different. If you take the bus,
you take the number 24 bus to do um to Madapan station. You could take the 28 bus to Dudley. From Dudley, you get a number for the buses to get to your appointment. Even today, the MBTA trip planner, you could go ahead and plug it in to figure out your commute to so many
appointments and an appointment right now from Hide Park to BMC to the prair is going to take you at least an hour to get there. Now, one of the things I will say is for some people that might say, "Okay, an
hour is not that bad." But if you're elderly, if you're a mother with a young child pushing a stroller, and if you're not feeling well, the worst thing you want to do is to be commuting via public transportation. And no, not everybody
have money to take an Uber to their destination. So keep that in mind when we think about access. So yes, while there are number of health centers in Boston, not everybody have the same equitable access to get to the doctor's appointments. Um, after leaving BMC, I
actually spent 12 years working at the Bigham and Women's um, Center for Community Health and Health Equity. And even as part of that role, I oversaw our data and evaluation team. And that's where I really got into the nitty-gritty
of the data. And I'm looking at older disparities and councelor Pep and you mentioned it and others on this panel have talked about the disparities in um in healthcare right so in the most recent Boston public health commission health of based on Boston report it
might show that while the average adult in Boston stands at a 4.9% diabetes rate in height is 30 point 13.9 the rates of cancer morbidity and mortality is also extremely high in height Park chronic disease is also on
the rise in hide park as well. Now here's the thing I'm proposing. A health center is not a magic bullet but we should have a health center as an arrow in our quaver as part of our long-term or short-term strategy to make sure that
everybody in height park have access to equitable um equitable healthcare. One of the things I have come to realize as well since I've been living in height park and from my different involvement either for work or volunteer organ volunteer opportunities people always say oh
there's this perception that he hide park is okay height park is okay but no the data speaks for itself I challenge you look at the data I am extremely thankful to our counselor um Pepin as well as our state representative Rob
Consalvo who work every day tirelessly to make our neighborhood better. And I thank them for their support for trying to make sure that we have the resources that we need and being part of this work that we are doing. And I urge you,
Council Fitzgerald, and everyone else to be a partner with them in that work to get us the health that we need in Hide Park. So, thank you for your time and thank you for coming out. Thank you everyone. Good night everybody. Can you hear me?
Cool. Um, dear committee members, um, residents and friends, I hope this message finds you with an open heart and listening ears tonight. My name is Dr. Ashley Sharp Porter. I am an educator and a researcher and I am a lifelong
Boston native and current High Park resident. I come before you to advocate for a long needed Hide Park um comprehensive medical center. Excuse me.
High Park is a vibrant community, vibrant and diverse community with uh many businesses that are thriving, many organizations as well as many restaurants and churches. But it still remains undeserved when it comes to
accessible and affordable health care. Many residents like myself face lifelong wait times, uh, limited transportation, some of which my colleagues have mentioned, um, and barriers to specialized health care. These
challenges have only intensified in recent years, particularly for elderly, the elderly population, families with young children, and those managing chronic conditions. As a current resident, I have to travel across the city through traffic to
receive quality health care. For a breast cancer survivor like myself, it is not ideal with the number of appointments that I have each month to travel uh for countless hours in traffic across the city to Bighgam and
Women's or to Dana Farber. Having quality primary care right here in Hyde Park would be life-changing for me. Furthermore, as someone who is currently childless but has recently under undergone the IVF um process,
I am seeking to start a family soon almost immediately. And I need the healthc care to be closer right here in my community near to my house. I know that there have been many institutional challenges that have
prevented a town with majority black and brown residents to have proper attention and investment from hospitals, some of which Sherma has just mentioned. However, I am hoping that you all would make funding and space your top priority
for a medical center that could provide our community and families like your own with culturally responsive highquality services such as prenatal care, such as preventative screenings for conditions and diseases like cancer um for primary
care and also mental health services. Thank you. Hello. I appreciate the opportunity to speak this evening. My name is Bill Henning. I'm on the committee. I'm also director of the Boston Center for Independent Living, which provides
services to about 4,000 over 4,000 people in greater Boston. We have an office in downtown Crossing and Fields Corner. Um, a lot of what I might have said this evening has already been stated by these
experts that sit with me. Um, but I will note that in Hyde Park there are approximately 5,000 people with disabilities. Roughly um 13% I think of the let me see what it was 13% of Hyde
Park residents have a disability which is over 5,000 people. Um, we are seeing in Hyde Park something very positive happening to the development of housing. We're not rejecting housing. We see a new development going right up in Clary
Square that will be for seniors. We have the Pride right around the corner for uh older people. We have Blake Estates. We have the Fairmount housing development. What we don't have is Proximate Health Care. And it's very important. I think we've heard about the significant need
around mental health concerns. We have higher rates of suicide, higher rates of uh anxiety in our population. I think it's roughly 9% for each of those categories. The transportation sure the transportation issue is quite
real. My very good friend and colleague Chris Hart lives in Hyde Park. if he goes down to get his care at BMC, uh he's taking a bus and transferring at Forest Hills or getting off at Rugles from commuter rail, which is not
necessarily the thing you want to do if you're not feeling well. Um, lastly, I think we're very aware that much of what we would consider a safety net is under uh aggressive, insensitive,
harmful assault from the administration in Washington and from Congress in Washington. Um, it will be deadly for low-income people. It will be deadly for people on Medicaid. And we are going to need more health care in our communities
as we lose potentially a billion dollars in Medicaid funding in Massachusetts. We are going to have to think of how we serve the people right in our own neighborhoods. Otherwise, we're going to have health care for people who can afford it and not near as much for
people who can't. And that's where the community health centers are going to come in. I know there's a real concern about funding because they're Medicaid dependent, but that's where the city, the state, and all of us have to pull together. And I think we're really going to need more care in our communities in
the face of the loss of Medicaid, SNAP, loss of uh HUD benefits, section 8, which may produce more unhoused people. So, we are looking at a crisis and we're going to need to work locally in our neighborhoods. So, thank you and thanks
for your consideration. Happy Thursday evening everyone. It is a pleasure to be here with you. Uh thank you for this opportunity to share the challenges as well as the opportunities that we have in Hyde Park to make sure that all residents have what they need
in order to thrive. Health is one of our biggest assets and from a uh with listening to all of my fellow steering committee members, you heard about the data. Now, there's one data point I want to reinforce
because we say we love babies. We say we love children. We have the highest infant mortality rate in the city. our babies are dying at the highest rate
of any babies in the entire city. And then you layer on top of that what we've learned from the state. I'm going to share this with you. So, we've talked about babies and now I'm going to talk about mothers. So, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public
Health, black women in Massachusetts are 1.9 or two times more likely to die during pregnancy or within one year postpartum compared
to white women. So when we talk about children, mothers, we're actually at a place where we should be talking about crisis, disaster. So, as someone who formerly
worked in government, in emergency management, public health, climate resilience, all of that stuff, when we talk about crisis or disaster, the official definition of a disaster is that the local capacity to deal with the
problem is overwhelmed. In other words, we need external help in order to address what the issue is. And in Hyde Park with babies dying and mothers dying, that is a disaster that
we need to develop the resources, shift our thinking in order to make sure that we are able to have the kind of quality health care that will reduce the burden of our community of deaths of babies and
mothers. And I'll end with this. I've been a resident for uh 17 oh going on 18 years. My youngest daughter is 17. I gave birth to her
after three months of living in Hyde Park and during that time I almost died. I was in a coma for the first two months of my daughter's life.
So when we in thinking about all of the subsequent appointments I had to go to, all the subsequent appointments I had to take her to, all of the subsequent chronic illnesses that I already had that I was managing, the amount of commute time that it took for me to go
back and forth to all these appointments. As someone who had a job, I'm married, I have resources. It was such a burden. The amount of time I had to take from work, the amount of time I had to take from spending time with family to deal with all of these
medical appointments. Now, if we shift, this isn't about me personally, right? This is not an uncommon story. My husband had a colleague who had a baby a week after I had a baby.
and she passed away given birth. This is not an uncommon story. And so I want to just wrap up by saying in terms of opportunities and what we can do, we've talked about a health and wellness center being an opportunity for
us to address the fundamental core challenge of access and supporting folks in the community where they live so they don't have to deal with such an a challenging uh commute to get to care. But we're dealing with the situation
where if we don't take action, if the city, if the state, if we don't come together as a community in order to take action, we are perpetrating something that's called institutional betrayal. Now, our colleague over here who is our
mental health expert has shared with you the information about the mental health issues at an individual level. But institutional betrayal is about how institutions cause harm or do not take any action
when harm is caused for people who depend on that institution. We depend on our government. And when the government and other institutions, in this instance, healthcare, ignore the death and pain in
our community, they're perpetrating institutional betrayal, which is a documented type of trauma. And it is such a painful type of trauma because you keep experiencing it because you can't get away from the perpetration of the harm.
So for us in our community, I hope that we are not willing to settle. There's a quote that I'll end with, which is I'll tell you where it's from. I'll share the quote with you, then I'll tell you where it's from. People will settle for anything just to
say they have something. And I don't want us to be those people. I don't want us to settle just for anything to say that we have some kind of health care or some kind of access. We need the kind that we need. Period. End of story. And that quote comes from
the Queen's Gambit series. Uh I know very pity from a doctorate right person. Uh but at any rate, um I'm hoping that you will join us in the fight and the struggle in order to get what our community needs, what we deserve. Thank you very much.
[Applause] Uh thank you to our panelists. Uh and I'd like to also uh acknowledge at this time that we have been joined by uh Council President Ruti Luen and city councelor at large Julia Mahia as well. Thank you guys for coming along.
Um I will now turn it over to the sponsors to begin with the first round of questions for this panel. Uh, and then I will turn uh the floor over to my colleagues in order of arrival, which just so happens to be in order of the sponsors anyway. So, I think we're going to be okay here. Um, Council Pen, uh,
questions for you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Before I begin with my questions, I do have a message from your state representative and your state senators. So, state representative Rob Consalo, the second best district 5 city councelor, u just a joke. Uh, he's over at the Archdale public housing facility
right now. He's sponsoring hot dog night, but he wanted to let you know that all know that he's very much supports this initiative and he's doing everything possible at the state house to make sure that we are receiving state support as well. So, thank you, Rob Gonalvo. From your state senator, Liz Miranda, state senator Liz Miranda
passed an amendment in the recently signed economic development bill that put $1 million towards acquiring a space to house a community health and wellness center. This amendment was an earmarked to the city of Boston and could be used for a feasibility study. We have five
years to figure out how we can use that funding. And of course, the senator hopes that it doesn't take too long. Thank you, Senator Miranda. And I wanted to share a fun fact. Now, when my team was doing research
about why do we need a High Park Health Center here in our community, we actually found out that the first black woman to ever become a doctor and practice as a doctor in the entire country in the entire United States,
she practiced right here in High Park. And her name is Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler. She practiced during the Civil War. She wasn't born here in High Park, but she's buried right at Fair View Cemetery. And the fact that we still don't have a High Park, but we have the
first ever black woman to practice medicine as a doctor in our country, then we we should change that. Which is why I'm so happy to see this panel because you are representative of that and it just shows that representation really matters, especially in our health in our health
careers. Now, that leads me to my first question to you all, and I think you touched a little bit on this at the summit that you had at the Pride not too long ago, is what type of health center do you envision? Literally, what's the type of building that you envision? What kind of message do you wanted to give to
the community? Anyone can answer that question. My colleagues are looking at me because I've been so mouthy about this issue. And um you and I have counsel have been talking about this, but um one of the things I talk about is the ways in which
we demonstrate care for our communities and value for the people who live there. And I make the analogy of driving down Route 9 one day to go to Framingham. And on the way on the way from Route Nine, getting on at Chestnut Hill at the plaza
there, driving down Route Nine, I encountered passed by three very large structures, all health centers, Welssley, Newton, Brookline,
all very large buildings, and they were actually owned by MGB. And I thought to myself, this is interesting. within the space of I don't know probably three or four miles are these three buildings. And so what does that say about the value for health in predominant
predominantly white communities and the value for health in predominantly black and brown communities. And so for me, my vision for a health center is to have an edifice that says that we value our residents, that for every possible
service and specialty that we need primarily in this area, primarily meaning the ones that we talked about that have huge disparities and huge statistics that say that we're missing something. Um, those are the ones represented. So my vision is, you know, I've I've gotten kind of granular
council. But I've gotten as grand saying, I want a six-story building with parking, a coffee shop in the lobby. I've gotten very granular. I want mental health. I want maternal health. I want pediatrics. I want ger gerontology. Yeah. Um I want it all. And I want a fitness center on the first floor. Has
its own gym. Yes. I want it all because we deserve it all. Right. And why should we settle for less than we really deserve and need in this community? We are gold. Look around. Look at the
people who live here. We are gold. We are beautiful. We are vibrant people working, contributing to the bottom line of this state and this country. Why can't we have the care to help us do that and to help us serve our families and live lives that we can enjoy like
anybody else? We deserve it. And so I have this vision for something really grand and beautiful. I think we're going to get it. What do you think? No, nobody else has a vision. Yeah, I Oh, you were good. Um, in addition to all of the basic necessities and
luxuries that Marcia just named, um, something that's important for me in a health center would be physicians, um, and mental health practitioners who share the same race, culture, ethnicity as myself and the rest of the High Park
residents. Um I was being seen many years ago, maybe eight or nine years ago in Dorchester and um at that health center there were a number of white physicians. I had been asking for a mammogram for over three years and even
until the day that I got one, the doctors had told me I was too young. They did not listen. They told me um my my breasts were too dense and you know they cited all the different research to not provide me with the care that I was
asking for. Um however I have found since then with my choice of very slim um physicians of color. I have felt a lot more affirmed when I'm being seen by them. I have felt a lot more heard when
I'm in their offices. And so that is absolutely important for the residents here, especially as we, you know, come here as a predominantly black community. Thank you. Thank you so much for adding that. I also want to add that we have a vision
for having wellness in this space that it's not just about western care that we also want to integrate different types of care. We have the Boston Acupuncture project which runs sits on the steering committee here. So having other options
for care, traditional Chinese medicine, things that we know have worked for centuries uh for folks and that provide more holistic care is also a desire for this uh health and wellness center. councelor
Pep and I felt like right now like I'm in a classroom and I say they took my answers they said oh that's what I was thinking about u but I think overall our vision for Hide Park Health and Wellness Center is a place where pe people can go and
get comprehensive accessible um care at the time that they need it. Um one of my former bosses always say um you could pay now or pay greater later and the
more people have to delay care for various reason be it access then they we are going to pay now not only personally but as a neighborhood and also as a as a city. So for me, my
vision is having a comprehensive community health center where people can get access to the care that they need when they need it. And then as we know with health centers, the way they were designed, there is always like a there is there is a governing board that is
made up of residents, right? So the majority of people on that advisory committee is made up of residents. And I envision a health center with all the things that Masio was saying, but also making sure that we stay true to what it
is that our community wants. We for board with direction from the community to ensure that we are constantly providing what it is that they need from us as a health and wellness center. Thank you Sherema. I just want to add
um so the last thing I want to say about this is that one of the things that I have been um very verbal about is my um frustration and I really have disdain for it but I'll say frustration because I want to be really um kind but the um the this idea of the edifice the way it
looks really um came to the four when I thought about if you have driven by the Shaws and there's a building with a sign outside of it that's set up by MGB that says hi Park Health Center. Whenever I go by that building, I get really insensed because it's it's a storefront.
Yes. And I cannot imagine that anyone could think that that storefront could service 30,000 residents. And I get really angry and insensed because I'm thinking if you can build a huge building in a Wells, Brooklyn that's six, seven stories high, but build me a storefront. Tell me that's that's that's disrespectful. So here's my request of
you as you're sitting here today. every one of you if you could join us in writing to MGB and I'll give you the information and tell them that you refuse to call a storefront health center that you want better. You deserve more and you're going to fight for more. I'm going to ask you to do that with us
because we here there's 15 of us. We meet monthly. We work hard but we cannot be the only voice fighting for this health center. We cannot be it won't work. It won't work. We have families and children. We have lives. We have health issues. We we want to rest and we need you to come alongside us. So, we'll
give you the information. If you leave your information out front, we'll email you who to write to. NGB, tell them we want a health center. We want more and better. Make that place that they have in High Park Avenue something that we can be proud of and they could really service us with.
[Applause] And I will quickly add because every, you know, all the the the other things were said, but what two things that I think are really critical. Um, one is that in addition to having a physical space, it has to be designed in a way
where we're going out into community. So, we need to be able to bring care out into the community. So, if you know about some of the other health centers or some of the hospitals, they have mobile vans. They go out, they're constantly interacting with community, and we need to we need that in Hyde
Park. Um, and then the second part is as a I'm putting my climate resilience hat on. um that when we build this building that it is a model. Yes. For reducing our carbon footprint, for generating energy, clean energy that
can help the community reduce all of our different electricity bills for folks who are in the vicinity of this community health center. and that it is a place where we're able to organize and have community space in order for us as
residents to continue to do meaningful work because there's always a fight that we need to have. Um, and we need to constantly be organizing to make sure that we are on the same page and that we understand all of the different needs in the community. Uh, because what we know
is that power without accountability is a recipe for disaster. So we always have to be organizing to hold all the different institutions accountable for how we interact and what we need from them. Thank you for those amazing answers. I
couldn't agree any more with those. Um my last question for you all is has there been any type of relationship with partners in the in terms of hospitals, medical professionals, um healthcare providers? What conversations were had
and what were the results of those discussions? I have to start y'all because Marcia said so. Um, we've spoken with the Mass League of Community Health Centers in order to think about strategy and approaches and
what does it mean? What does it take in order to establish a health center? what are all the different uh ways that we can approach it. Uh we've also uh had in our health and wellness uh summit. We also had a number of our local um
healthc care practitioners there included in Lai um healthcare providers there in order to uh talk about ways that we could collaborate on what the vision could be and the ways that we can partner. But um I think those are the main ways and we've also learned uh from
the uh South End Community Health Center um as a grassroots started organization um as well as uh we're in the process of going out to East Boston Community Health Center to learn more um about how they're operating and how they were
started. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that. And I'll just add um Yes. And by the way um before I speak, I do want you to please acknowledge and thank the rest of our team sitting down there. Could you all just stand in the blue shirt? That's the rest of our team. And there's two people who are absent. Three people who are absent.
Um and they and they have stuff to say too. I'm sure they'll speak, but I just want to say in terms of our our work with other entities, our our desire is for partnership. And if you know anything about the process for health center, and Mary Ellen is not here tonight, but part
the first part of the work is for us to get a ground swell to establish a need both with data and with you all saying that we need this. And the second part is for us to find what we're calling a dance partner which is somebody a provider like a MGB or a BMC and then they will um help us shepherd this whole
idea of what the building will look like acquiring the building the services that'll be there but we need that dance partner. So the advocacy that you're going to provide with this letter is part of that work of getting our dance partner, getting our provider. And so we've met with um MGB on a couple of occasions and have asked them to do this
work and they're heming and harring. But we know what happens when people hem and haw and they get pressure from the public, right? Yeah. Yeah. So that's why we're asking you to write because and they'll they'll hem and ha in secret, but we just need you to let them know that you're serious and we're serious
and we're not going away. We've also reached out to BMC and have had um not much response. We won't put them out there, but we are waiting for someone to come to the four. And then um as as u Dr. Martin mentioned, we've been talking to other health centers still just to
learn because we know we have a lot to learn. So we've been having cross conversations with different entities and health centers because we believe that this work is going to happen in community in collaboration and with people who really believe in the vision as we do. And I'll just add that in the meantime,
we've also started conversations with which happened at our summit this year about bringing mobile services to the community because it's some we're one of the only neighborhoods that is not getting an MGB van that comes out to provide services or testing. And so that is something that we are currently in
conversations about um to provide services in the meantime. Thank you for those responses. And I in the in those answers, I also heard the shout out to the South Dan Community Health Center. Yes. Fun fact, Deina Masel, a High Park resident, Jose
Masel's wife, um helped helped build that up. So, I just wanted to another High Park connection there. But thank you so much for those. Can I just say something about Deina? Sure. Yeah. Just want to quickly say Deina Maso is one of the giants in our community married to the wonderful Jose Maso and mother of
the Jose Fabio Maso who's our chief of human services for the city of Austin. And the story about Deina part of the reason why I'm so stoked about our work together is because Deina shared that the south end community health centers started in a very similar fashion.
People like us, they got together and they were able to mobilize and build their health center. So, just know that what we're doing is possible. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for your responses. Thank you, panel. Uh, Council President
Ruthie Luigian, the floor is yours. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair, and um, thank you uh, to uh, the lead sponsor, Council Pep Pen, for bringing us out into community. Um, thank you to everyone for being here and to being part of this discussion. It matters a
great deal for me as someone who grew up just a street over. We're on Metropolitan. My parents live on Lexington. Um, and I know that High Park deserves what every other neighborhood gets. And I know when my family when there are emergencies, there's a der of
hospitals and places where people can go. um what we have in our area, we have I like and love the fact that we have the Madapan Health Community Center. It's not as big as we would want it to be. We have the Carney closure where a
lot of residents, a lot of black and brown folks, a lot of people in the area when you have an issue, um you go to the Carney and we don't have that as much anymore. Uh we don't have that anymore. And so this is incredibly important conversation. And so I want to thank
everyone of course the indomitable and incomparable Marcia Kim Jackson for uh your leadership on this but also um to everyone who is also bringing in their own personal stories right it's so unfair that we have to share so much of
ourselves in order to get health equity in order to get health parity um you know I'll just say that the biggest killer here is uh the profit model in healthcare um and in this current model, you know, I'm I'm walking in here and I
get these flyers about Medicaid and the cuts to Medicaid. And so, you know, as much as I want a health center here tomorrow, I think that the industry right now, there are so many tremendous challenges in the industry. So, I just wanted to just preface questions with that. And I also want to thank our
incredible central staff for being here and for bringing us out into community and also want to thank the Boston Police Department for being here um and making sure they're centered in community as well. So, um, just wanted to thank them for that. Um, you know, if we're not taking care of our our wellness, we're,
you know, we're looking after our illness. And I think that that in High Park, we, you know, there's previous I want to thank councelor Pen for his work on this. Previous councelor Ricardo Royo also worked on securing the initial seed funding to get, but it's been slow
moving like molasses. And I'm wondering and Marcia, I I I I see and I'm with you um in your grand vision for what a health center in High Park could look like. You know, we were just in discussions, including Council Joe,
about what a new Carney, what a new health facility would look like in Dorchester postclosure of Carney, realizing how difficult it is to have hospitals in this these day and ages. So, if I were to ask you what were
or what people think are like the top three or the top four health care needs that you would want the center to address, I would that's something that I would find incredibly helpful. I mean I I've kind of I'll say again um mental health um and I I say this all
the time there is no health without mental health. We we often separate the two um and one it creates stigma um but two it also ensures difficulty with access. Um and again when we look at the rates in our community um suicide is the third leading cause of death in black
boys aged 10 to 24. And the rates of suicide among black and Latino children um have increased almost 10fold over the last 10 to 15 years. Um and a couple of years ago I worked in a clinic in Newton and we developed partnerships with the
schools in Newton. And so our primary referral source were children from those schools um where they could walk over to the clinic during lunch after school. Um, and we partnered with the school counselors and we know many of the schools in our community are underst
staffed with school nurse nursing. Some have no school counselors, some have school counselors that are split between three to four schools. Um, and our and our students are under stress. Our students are are dying. And so I I feel like, you know, child psychiatry, child behavioral health, but certainly all
mental health is I certainly would say top three um because it it it has to be integrated healthcare. Can I can I just do a follow-up on When you say mental health, are you also talking about like inpatient beds for folks who are experiencing crisis? No. So, I was
thinking specifically outpatient. So, it could we could expand it with, you know, outpatient therapy, outpatient psychiatry, potentially groups. Um, and then having case managers, having social workers and therapists that can help refer to higher levels of care so people aren't just sitting in emergency rooms
for 8 to 15 hours. um in a great in a grand world if we're thinking really big urgent care would be amazing but I wasn't specifically thinking of inatient that's that's an entirely different animal I don't have a lot to add I I think for
me I I think back again when I when I spoke earlier on just talking about the founding of community health centers which um you know the first one being in Dorchester at Columbia Point when we look at the wellestablished health
centers in Boston be the the manipan leia streets um you know east Boston one of the biggest in the country it did not happen overnight right I do not expect us to have a big fancy glossy although
masia envisioned it and we went together in our visioning board I don't expect us to overight might have, you know, a a a glossy fancy building tomorrow or even next year. And to your point, counselor,
there are so many challenges that we are seeing um with potential cuts to Medicaid and so many things that's in our current environment that's threatening health and wellness and everything else that we hold, you know, we hold dear. To your point, as to some
of the things and to what my colleague Dr. Nicole said, you know, mental health is something that we know is desperately needed and um it's something that I think a health center in Hide Park could provide. Um Dr. Atio Martin talk about
the maternal health crisis, the disaster of it. So it could be something that we can say let us address maternal health, let's um address mental health. um councelor pepin who talk about even
chronic disease be it diabetes and um heart disease that is something that we could address or even urgent care we are not naive we don't expect to address everything right now but at least we're looking to you guys to help us to start
madapan community health center started as a trailer they had a trailer on blue hill avenue when they started we might not want a But we might be able to start small and grow. So our vision is to look at the health data and say what is most needed
now? What do we need now? And we've heard it all from mental health, maternal health, chronic disease, and maybe even urgent care. And as funding grow and things get better and we position ourself, maybe we could have that nice big six-story building with
parking below and a Starbucks coffee and everything else. But we want to start. We need to start somewhere and we don't want to be, you know, well, we don't have the money for things. Where do we start? And that's what we hoping that you, our counselors, can work with our
city councelor on um to make some of those things happen. Thanks Sharma. The only thing that I would add to the mental health, the maternal health would be um primary care with specific preventative screenings
um as well as holistic care for our residents. Um as Dr. Martin mentioned and also um Shurmer have mentioned before uh uh Hide Park has the highest rate of um maternal m mortality right
now. It has the highest rate of chronic diseases for black and brown communities um as well as the highest rates of cancer. And so I do believe that the preventative screenings um and care and primary care for residents will be a
gamecher for um the High Park community. Thank you. Awesome. And and finally, I just want to add um a comment and I want to give a shout out to the education that I got from one of our colleagues who was unable to be here tonight, Dr. Lisia McGregor, professor of of uh
public health at Harvard School of Public Health and health equity expert. and she uh put a bug in our ear before she had to um travel and she talked about um this whole idea of having contingency planning knowing what's coming down the pike with cuts to Medicare. We are actually going to be
going into a strategy session to talk about how we can strategize to have care being accessible to our neighborhood without the health center or in the interim. So things like more mobile vans we talked about and we'll be working on that. We welcome partners to help us do that to make sure that's a reality for
us um in this year. We think it can happen. The mobile vans that are happening now, we can have those be in hide park more frequently and that will provide for us in the interim services and support until we get our health center. So, we have thought about contingency plans and what's this plan
B? Uh council Julian, we have just um thank you for that answer. I think I I heard mental health um outpatient mental health, urgent care, OB/GYN, primary care with preventative screenings as sort of like the top and I just think like again where it starts from maybe it's just finding one partner
to do one of these things and starting there. Um I selfishly I think I think mental health would would would be a a great place to start. Um but um thank you. That's my those are my questions now for this panel. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Council
President. Council May, you have the floor. Thank you. I am happy to be here with you all. Uh and I just want to thank everyone who showed up because that is half the battle is showing up and demonstrating that High Park is ready.
Um and you know what you want and you want it now, right? And so this is how you show up and and and I always say that Marcia is the number one organizer. So if you know anything about organizing, Marcia will
get you to show up and show out and sometimes uh doing a little bit more than that. So since we've been at this Marcia now, I think for the LA you brought me here under false pretenses when you first invited me to be I don't know your racial justice uh
conversations and then you got me into this conversation and you just know how to get things done. And so I just want to commend you and to thank you and how you've continued to organize and bring more people into this space so that we can understand what this moment is all
about. So I grew up um very privileged in the sense that I grew up with a community health center. My community health center is Dorchester Community Health Center and that's where my daughter who's 15 years old is getting her care since she was a baby. And so
there is something to be said about what it feels like to have a community health center that you can literally grow up with. Um, and they weren't they they they've gone through their renovations. They they didn't start off as like a little trailer cuz when I was there, they had like a little building, but
they scaffold and they've grown and now it's a multi-ervice center. There's a pool, there's programming, there's wick, there's everything in one place, right? And so I think to your point of like how do we grow into what we want is part of
the strategy to get there and I think that that's what I have seen and you know that's why I clap for that. That's what I've seen. We're going to grow into it. Um and you know and I think council Lu Jen said it best is that sometimes we have
to share so much of ourselves just to get what we want. But we deserve good things without having to do that. Um, and for me, I had gastational diabetes when I had my daughter, and so I had to take insulin while I was pregnant. Um,
it was a tough I was a high-risisk pregnancy, but again, going back to I had a health center. I also had a midwife, right? But it was a still a very traumatic birth and I and I was forced into a C-section
because I was a woman of color. I really didn't know how to fight for my rights and they took away that privilege of me being able to have my daughter in a natural birth. And that is when we're talking about culturally competent care and the and the black and brown maternal
health. Those are the sort of things that I wish that we had right here in High Park. And so I'm here with you all. You I came here just to let you know that I didn't even have to come here cuz I've been here. But I'm here for all of
it. And my question is for those like what are what are the where where are you how far are you driving in this moment to get care for those folks who live in High Park? What is your health journey to get the care that you need?
What does that look like? Oh, y'all don't go get doctors. What's up? I'm I'm Dr. Ellen Scaliz and I've lived in H High Park for eight years and I joined this committee about a year ago and um if I want specialty care then I
have to go into Boston and that used to be simpler because I had a car but now my husband and I share a car and so that means that the only day that neither of us need the car is a Friday and trying to say to somebody I need my appointment
on a Friday means I could wait months and months and months. Um, I do my PCP through Greater Roslandale, but they're going through a lot of changes right now. And they've had several of their primary care doctors leave. And so I
don't actually know who my doctor is anymore. So it's it's difficult. It's very difficult. And um earlier when we were talking about the things that we wanted to focus on, I think one other need that's big in hide park is
geriatric care. We are a seriously aging community. No. Talk into the mic so we can hear you better. We are a seriously aging community and we need geriatric care. There are a lot of people in Hide Park
that are elder. They have chronic conditions or even they have new conditions due to their age and they cannot get on multiple buses and trains and take the MBTA to go in and see a
doctor. They don't have the resilience. They don't have the strength. They may not have another person to go with them. They may not physically be able to do it. So, we need to serve that community as well. Thank you for that. Thank you
for that. Um, I I live in a multigenerational home, so our care is all over the place. My mother um lives with us and is recovering from lung, excuse me, lung cancer as well as multiple chronic diseases. And um all of her care is at
MGH. and she had an appointment this morning with her primary care doctor at 9:00 a.m. and the ride picked her up at 5:00 a.m. Um, and and often they're late. And so she was supposed to be picked up from her appointment at 11:00 a.m. and the ride arrived at 1:00 p.m. And so for a 9:00 a.m. appointment that
lasted 45 minutes, my mother was gone for hours. Um, or I have to take off work and basically take a half day in order to get her to her appointments. Um, and she does have complex care, but how wonderful would it be if they had a satellite clinic where they could still
share the electronic record and she could access her PCP 10 or 15 minutes away and not hours away and relying on, you know, truthfully the not always reliable ride services. Um, my my kids, I wanted them to have a pediatrician of
color, so we go to Atrius Health and Brainree because it was the only place I could find a black pediatrician who took our insurance. Um, and you know, I can keep going on and on and on. I have to go get a mammogram and because I have to go through atrius, my options are like
Kenmore and I think Welsley. That's it. I have no no other options. My husband has to get a colonoscopy and he has to either go to like Backbay or, you know, a couple of other locations. But again, nothing is convenient. Nothing is local. Nothing is easily
accessible. Yeah. And and go ahead. No. Um similarly uh so I have thankfully a woman of color as my PCP which I have to drive 45 minutes to see her. Um she is part of the MGB group and she recently
left. She's been my doctor since I was 22 years old. Wow. Um not only did she leave but she took seven doctors with her. So now that practice is closing, a full practice at MGB in Chestnut Hill is
closing because doctors are moving and they're dissatisfied also with the care and and how they're being treated in this hospital system. So now I have to drive to Welssley which is not convenient at all. Um I'm also in an intergenerational home. My mother gets
her care um in community health centers in Jamaica plane thankfully um who offer her senior programming who she very gladly goes to three times a week um and that's closer but it's still a car right away it's not convenient by public
transportation and um even though I do have chronic illnesses I'm still very lucky that I can transport myself um to my doctor's appointments but it's not convenient at all and I would much rather be served in my community and it and it feels Go ahead, Dr. Martin. It's
good to see you. Always a pleasure, counselor. Uh the I think I don't know if you were here earlier when folks talked about the the actual public transportation journey. That's right. Right. So, um the the
journey that Sherma talked about is if you take the red line, right? So, you got to take that 24 over to Matapan, take the trolley over to um uh Ashmont and then catch the buses or the trains and then catch more buses. Or you can go
um catch a bus all the way back up to the 32 back up to Forest Hill Station and then you got to catch a train to uh a a bus um or catch another bus to depending on where your health care is
um to catch two more buses. So, it's um it's a lot. And even driving, you heard that most people here are driving and it's taking them 45 minutes. At least 45 minutes. On public transportation, you're talking about at least an hour or
more depending and you're dependent on the schedule of public transportation of the way the buses align with the trains and the buses to the buses. Yeah, that's why I asked the question about the journey and because I know that High Park is also a transportation desert. It
is a health desert. It is all types of deserts happening here. And I think that that is central to the conversation and you know people say that health is wealth and there is very limited uh health wealth here in in High Park and so happy to be having this conversation.
I can tell that the chair is letting me know that my time is up. So, I will end with that. Appreciate that, Councilman here. I did promise folks we'd be as close to 8:00 as possible. So, then we still have another round uh of questions, but um I did have I did have some questions, but
you all answered most of them. Great questions from my colleagues as well. Um, I would just like to reiterate the fact council president Lu Jen brought up the car the carne closure which rep is in the district that I represent and the role of neighborhood health centers that that played the role they played in
taking on the added folks that had could no longer receive their care at the hospital in Dorchester and they they are now I mean they're packed to the gills right with with people and and even before that occurred before the closure even occurred I would talk to the health center Codman asked
Codman Square Health Center, do house health. Um, and they said, "John, we lose money as health centers with every patient that walks in the door, we lose money, but we will not turn people away." So, I only say that to say you will if if and when you get your neighborhood health center, that the
battle is not over because the business model is built to make it extremely difficult to continue on. If there's a way that we all can figure out a different business model, that certainly makes the difference, right? But I know a lot of things have to happen to do that. Um, but there'll be a lot of
fundraisers. I know Council Pepen will definitely uh sponsor some of those uh to raise money once you guys are up and going. Um, but I just wanted I I just wanted to caution that because when I talked they said the onslaught now obviously taking on more people and if you tell me you're losing money with each patient walks through the door and
says, "Okay, we'll take all the leftovers from the carne." Well, that's not helping their bottom line, but they're not going to abandon folks and uh and I know Hide Park isn't either. So um I look forward to your journey and here to help you guys. Uh and thank you so much panel for being here for your excellent answers uh enjoying your time.
Uh you are excused. You may go down sit in the audience if you will and we'll bring up our second panel. Uh but again thank you so much uh for your education. [Applause] So with that, uh, we will bring up the,
uh, the one individual from the second panel representing the administration, uh, Crystal Garcia, the director of policy for the Boston Public Health Commission. Uh, Crystal, uh, please come on up. Thank you. Yeah. Uh and just a reminder after this
panel that there will be public testimony and we will go through and order the way folks signed up. Director Garcia, how are you doing? Well, thank you. Thank you for having me. Can everyone hear me? Okay, now just want to make sure. Just make sure that microphone's close. Um, I don't know if
you have a presentation or something something that you would like to start off with. The floor is yours. Yes. Thank you. I have some brief remarks that I'll share. Make sure you're close to the microphone. Better. All right. There. Thank you. Uh, Chairman Fitzgerald, esteemed
counselors and community members. My name is Crystal Garcia and I'm the director of policy for the Boston Public Health Commission. First off, I want to thank you for inviting me here this evening to discuss the importance of healthc care access for the Hyde Park community.
First, I want to share a few words um on the immense value of community health centers. As you already heard this evening in Boston, we are fortunate to have a nationleading network of community health centers that provide
access to high quality, timely, and affordable health care for residents of Boston. regardless of their ability to pay. The healthc care services that are provided by our community health centers are designed to be linguistically appropriate and culturally tailored to
the communities they serve. Our health centers provide access to primary care services, on-site specialty care, and referrals to our vast network of academic and community hospital centers. From a public health perspective, community health centers
are a key ally in the Boston Public Health Commission's mission to advance health equity across Boston. We support all efforts to strengthen and build this network of community health centers, especially at this time when health centers and the systems that
sustain them like Medicaid are under threat. I want to commend and congratulate the Hyde Park Health Center steering committee for their successful efforts to shine a light on Hyde Park's health access needs. BPHC has been meeting with this group for the past two
years now and we are inspired by their passionate commitment and hard work to advance the health of their community. In March, I had the opportunity to present at the Hyde Park Health and Wellness Summit on the health status of Hyde Park residents.
And at that presentation, I highlighted some data, but this evening, I'd like to highlight a few metrics here um for anyone who may have missed it or may not have yet heard this data. Hide Park is home to four pharmacies and four primary care practices, but it is one of only
two neighborhoods in Boston that does not have a health center. 95% of Hide Park residents have health insurance with 54% of them insured by Mass Health. One key marker we look at in population
health is premature mortality. Premature mortality is defined as death before age 65. Premature mortality in Hyde Park mirrors that of Boston overall and has remained stable for Hyde Park from 2020 to 2024.
The leading causes of premature mortality for Hide Park residents in order are cancers, overdose, and heart disease. The rates of cancer and overdose in Hyde Park are similar to the rest of Boston. However, rates of heart disease mortality for Hyde Park are
higher than the rest of Boston. This data and much more is are regularly collected and analyzed by the Boston Public Health Commission. We encourage everyone to take a look at our health of Boston and other reports which are publicly available on our website. From
our research, we know that other health issues are important to address in Hyde Park. And some of those are in um sorry, some of those include asthma, infinite maternal health, and access to healthy food. Next, I'd like to share a little bit
more about um BPHC's programs and services. Here's a few of the things that we're doing specifically to serve health needs of Hyde Park residents. BPHC operates a school-based health center here at New Mission High School, providing
culturally and developmentally appropriate health care services to our youth. The team at New Mission includes a mental health clinician, a medical provider, and a health educator. Through our Boston Healthy Childare Initiative, we pro we partner with
family childcare educators in Hide Park to help ensure the environments our youngest children spend their days in are healthy spaces. This fiscal year, we partnered with 12 child care programs in Hide Park, reaching 90 children ages zero to five.
Through our asthma home visitings programs, community health workers visit homes to assess for asthma triggers, review asthma symptoms and medications, and create asthma management plans. We serve approximately 50 families in Hyde
Park with um with asthma annually. And then there's our healthy baby healthy child program which makes home visits for pregnant and parenting families to provide services like breastfeeding counseling, health education, and injury prevention. In
2024, we visited 147 Hyde Park families. And finally, in partnership with the parks department, our summer fitness series offers free fitness classes in all Boston neighborhoods. We're pleased to offer a free yoga class weekly in Hide Park at Mcan Playground. So, come
join us Tuesdays at 6 p.m. I also wanted to make sure um to share briefly a new initiative from the Boston Public Health Commission, which I hope you've heard of, but if you haven't, it's called Live Long and Well, our city's first population health equity agenda. This agenda is about our
commitment to eliminating gaps in health outcomes and creating a city where all residents can live healthy, long lives. We have a big goal to close the life expectancy gap entirely citywide by 2035.
When we think about how we got here or how we get here, we know that community must be at the core, which is why we are so honored to work in partnership with groups like the Hyde Park Health Center Steering Committee. In closing, I must communicate that we are deeply dismayed
at federal developments that place Medicaid and our healthcare institutions under threat. Right now, Congress is considering a bill that would make drastic cuts to Medicaid, putting insurance coverage for individuals and the stability of the entire health care system at risk. We ask for the council
to stand with us in advocating for Medicaid, which we know here in Massachusetts as Mass Health. As we mentioned earlier, 54% of insured High Park residents are um using Mass Health. And combating these federal cuts is a vital is vital to maintaining healthcare
access for these residents. Looking ahead, we look forward to continuing to partner with the Hyde Park Health Center Steering Committee, the wider community, our healthcare institutions, and you, the council, to advance the health of Hide Park
residents. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you, Director Garcia. We'll now go to call uh questions from my colleagues with Council Enrique Pipet. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Director Garcia, first of all, thank you for the work you do for the Boston Public Health
Commission as a director of policy. Throughout your work and your expertise, what benefits has the Boston Public Health Commission seen from a neighborhood-based health center, what what impact do they have on the community? And based on the on the data that you that you showed shared with us
about how our disparities are in terms of cancer and heart diseases, how do you think it would impact the neighborhood of of High Park to have its own community health center? Sure. We know, as I said, our community health centers provide culturally and linguistically appropriate care, provide
care that um is really centered on the community where they're located. So I think that we know firsthand community health centers play a vital role in um supporting their direct communities. Uh in addition to that, community health centers often employ our neighbors and they employ the people who live in those
communities. And so I think it's um very important and the BPHC definitely agrees that um supporting community health centers where people can have easy access. Um we heard earlier many stories where people are you know navigating
immense risk and heart and and um also burden just to see um doctors to receive basic care. So, I'd say we are fully supportive of um community health centers for that reason. And I think that having um regular access to screenings, um timely followup, um and
all those pieces are definitely part of our healthcare infrastructure to ensure that um folks are not dying from cancer, um suffering from asthma and many of the other uh maladies that they experience. Thank you, director Garcia. Thank you, Council Pepin. Council
President, the floor is yours. Thank you, Director Garcia, for being here with us this evening. Um, I think this is in the in the policy world. Um, but what would be your recommendation to the steering commun to steering committee to
the council on how to get this started like the best way to get this off the ground? Is it finding that one partner on in one practice area and shooting up from there? Um we understand the very real challenges right now for federally
qu FQC's federally qualified health community health centers. I think that's I don't know if I got that but uh that there are tremendous challenges. So in light of that and understanding that what would be your best practice or recommendation on how to get started?
Thank you for that question. I think it's a really tough question considering um what is going on in our environment and a lot of the um uncertainty around Medicaid which is the primary uh payer for um those who visit uh health centers, community health centers. Um I
would say our continued partnership with or or and especially the steering committees continued partnership with um organizations like the Mass League and also continuing to um convey and get our all of our support um to share with our
local healthcare le um healthcare uh infrastructure leads. So, I know that MGB was engaged, but also engaging um other hospitals to um to convey continue to convey the importance of a community health center in Hide Park.
Thank you. Um I I appreciate that. That that's that's basically the thing that I care about most is like and I'm sure that's what the steering committee cares about like how do we how do we put this there's a lot of energy. We've had a lot of conversations. There's been money set aside. So like like how are we taking
the next step um and and who's going to take the charge and helping us get there? Thank you, Director Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Council Mia. Thank you, Dr. Garcia. I I want to pick up where Councelor uh Luen left off. Um
especially when we've heard from uh some of the community panelists talked about the data in High Park. we address some of the transportation desert here, the difficulties that a lot of residents face in trying to access health care. Um, so within that framework, you said
that there were two um neighborhoods that did not have health centers in the whole city of Boston, which is the other neighborhood? West Roxberry. West Roxberry. Okay. Um, and West Roberry is also a transportation desert, so it seems like there is a a theme here, but
we're here to talk about High Park. Just keep it focused on High Park here, y'all. I'm curious um in terms of just the appetite. Um it seems like the steering committee has
been at this for some time. They've identified potential even spaces. Uh, what would you say is the biggest roadblock in the Boston Public Health Commission diving all in to support this
initiative? That's a really tough question. Um, I think that's what we're here for. Thank you for that question. Um, so we we regularly support community health
centers um throughout the city and I think we're we're bought in. We've been part of this process um at least for the last two years with the steering committee showing our support um facilitating any communication or relations relationships that we can to
try to um move this forward. Um, I think I would love to hear more about considering what being fully bought in means just because I'd hate to, you know, make assumptions about that, but um I think that as far as within our our
sphere of um influence, we definitely um are supportive. Yeah. Yeah. And one more followup. Okay. Thank you. Um, so just following that thread, um, I'm a
big believer of like mutual a mutual aid and how community like we have all of the assets. Just I'm sure we have doctors here. We have mental health practitioners. We have doulas. We have it all right here in High Park. We don't have to leave to make this happen.
Right. And it sounds like from a this might be outside of your wheelhouse. This might be more of a capital a capital uh planning project that comes out of the city that is supported with some technical assistance and some financial support from the Boston Public
Health Commission. But it seems like to me that one of the biggest obstacles is really the space and where you operate and then identifying a partner that can help you execute. So to that end, who would you say when you're looking at the healthcare, you know, the Boston, the
Boston Medical Center, you know, Brighamin Women's, you know, who are the hospitals that are well positioned that you potentially can point us to that would be a good partner in this particular venture in this moment in
time? Yeah, that's a great question. Um, I think that that's a part that we definitely have to um assess feasib feasibility for. I don't feel comfortable. Um I don't think I have enough information to fully answer that question. Um definitely not on behalf of the hospitals, but um yeah, we'd love
to, you know, partner to learn more about that to decide to determine feasibility. Yeah. And I I know we don't have everybody here, but I my question is too is like I think about some of the the BCFs. I I think about all the space that we have here that oftentimes is
underutilized. is I I think about the vacant lots that we see and you know I I feel like even if it's just a popup in a space that we can demonstrate what it looks like that's the type of like brainstorming that I'd love to be able
to start doing alongside my colleagues to really think about how do we meet this moment because we don't have to keep waiting like I'm a firm believer that we can work and test things out and start utilizing and occupying space to
that's just me and and I'd love to be able to uh to engage in what is possible. I don't like nos and so I want to invite you Dr. Garcia to lean on us to push us and to help support you and
your in and your in your work in in this space. And I also want to just shout out that central staff. This is their second offsite hearing in one week and this one is less traumatic than the one that I experienced with you all a few uh days ago. So, I just want to acknowledge uh
that central staff um is working overtime this weekend and thank you Candace and your team for for being here again. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, director. We appreciate you being up here. Uh you are excused if you
want. Thank you so much. Thank you. We will now move forward with public testimony. When your name is called, please come down to one of the two podiums. Or is it we only have one? Just one. Yeah, come to the the podium to uh to my left, your right. Uh and state
your name, neighborhood, andor organization affiliation. Uh please speak into the microphone and please keep your comments to two minutes. Uh, I will be keeping track of how long over two minutes you guys talk, but I try not to let anyone go too far. Um, but thank
you for your patience up until this point. Uh, first up we have Celeste Peters. Celeste, you still here? Great. Let's hear it for Celeste. Sure. We We'll give everyone a round of applause on the way down first. I hope you can hear me. Yep.
Okay. My name is Celeste Peters, a resident of High Park since 1968. I graduated from this high school. I would like to say the following. I am retired from Mass General and Partners Healthcare, which is now MG Brigum. I
would like every one of the panels and the doctors here to set a meeting with Dr. Anne Kleansky, the president. I say that because I worked in the president's office at credential building 11th floor in the credential tower for the
corporate office. I'm retired for almost 30 years in the medical field. I'm not a doctor or a nurse. I'm an administrator and that's all I have to say. But I feel that Michael Curry, the attorney, I I can't remember what his new title is.
And also every a few doctors and the councilman and the state representatives need to ask for a meeting with Dr. Anne Kleansky, the president. You go to the president's office at 800 Boilson Street on the 11th floor. I worked there for
years. I know how much money comes through there. I know they have the ability to open up a healthc care center out here. You need to get to the horse's mouth. not all the politicking. They have great
board members that are extremely endowed to help you get the center out here. And whatever I can do now that I'm retired and I will be I'm still home now and I'm so happy to help. I can help in any way if I have to walk up and down with a
poster board. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Celeste. Uh, up next, uh, Diane Farley. Hi everybody. My name is Diane Folly as they said and I would like to say as a
senior citizen now I hold my head up high speaking to the mic please. Sorry I'm usually being told that I'm loud because I'm hard of hearing. Um, but anyway, I recently had an an a pretty
goodsized aneurysm removed from my brain and it was found by accident um by a whole different specialist. Um, I also took a really bad fall and had to
go to Brighamin Women Faulner and I was there for 24 hours trying to get all the testing done. I am very grateful because I do have insurance and not everybody
does. Uh, first of all, I've been I grew up in Hyde Park. I moved here in 1963 and I came from Orchard Park in Roxberry and uh, you know, things were starting
to get rough then. But anyway, um I'm going to let you all know I have been previously incarcerated and the girls that are left inside
are suffering greatly. A lot of them black and brown community. They also um are being given hyerectomies unnecessarily
and it's disgusting. I had a friend pass away already that came out on medical parole such as myself. people that are trying to get out can't
and they're so sick and they're losing limbs. I mean, these are my good friends. So, it's not just people out here. It's senior citizens that aren't being looked
at. And there, you know, I don't let go. I'm like a bulldog. I don't let go of anything. I try to get what I need today. I was made an addict by doctors
back in 196. Um, all my friends became addicts back then. Uh, and fetamines were given like candy, Valium, Xanax. It was all the time. 15 seconds in the 90s. Okay.
My kids lost 12 to 15 friends from addiction because they didn't have help. I'm sorry to hear that. So, thank you all. Thank you for your testimony. I really appreciate it.
Uh, next was Jessica Paulino, but we were a panelist, so I assume you just thought this was a signin sheet. That's fine. All right. That's We're moving along. Uh, a Benjamin Carol would be up next. Benjamin, thank you.
Hello. Can you guys hear me? Okay. Just speak right into the mic very loudly. Oh, yeah. Okay. Is this good? You can raise it. I can walk adjust it. Yeah. Do like so I I can Okay. Um just Yeah. Just just take it off the thing. Oh, okay.
Then you'll be able to Much better. Okay. Thank you, Marcia. Okay. So, thank you members of the Hide Park community for coming here today and the Boston City Council for listening to me speak. My name is Benjamin Carol. I'm an employee of Beth Israel Hospital, which is where I'm coming from today.
Um, as of last month, I'm a graduate of UMass Amherst. And most Thank you. Thank you. Um, and most recently, I'm a member of the Hide Park Health and Wellness Steering Committee. Um, thank you Marcia for inviting me here today. I'm so happy to speak. So, I've been connected to the
Hide Park community for my entire life through Lowry Medical Associates, which is where my papa, Dr. Charles Lowey, served as a family medicine physician for over 50 years. And for a little less than 50 years, I served as his medical assistant, helping serve the community alongside him. So, today, I wanted to
share a story of my time in Amherst where I saw how big of a difference a community health center made. So for three years while I went to school, I supervised weekly community meetings for individuals with developmental disabilities called the Boltwood Project. And every Friday I walked home
with my 74year-old friend Lee. Um so he has a developmental disability that makes it difficult for him to manage things like healthcare and groceries and transportation on his own. Um and he gave me permission to share this story today when he called to tell me he wasn't feeling well and he asked if I could come over to check on him. So I
drove over to see him. I asked if he saw his PCA recently. Um, they were supposed to see him twice a week and he told me that he hadn't seen her in a very long time and I was concerned. I knew Lee was a type 1 diabetic. So, I brought my glucometer. I went to check his blood sugar and it was over 300 milligrams per
deciliter, which is incredibly high and incredibly lethal if it's left untreated for too long. So, I drove him straight to the hospital. He quickly recovered, but I was terrified and I had no idea what to do. So along with the coordinators of the Boltwood project, I turned to Amherst's Bangs Community
Health Center. So together with the Bang Center, we found out he had missed the renewal deadline for his math health mass health insurance. Um he was never informed of this and he lost access to his PCA and access to care for god knows how long and we didn't find out until it
was already his health at risk. So with the help of the ba with the help of the bang center, we were able to reenroll him in mass health. And now it's not only a place for him to go when he's not feeling well, but they send a PCA to check on him every week. When his cat died and he was suffering from
loneliness, they were the ones that financed a new cat for him. And now he doesn't have to rely on a random college student answering his phone to save his life because he has someone checking in with him every week providing preventative medicine to limit future health issues from occurring in the first place. So, I knew Lee for years. I
walked home with him every week. And I had no idea until his health was already at risk that he had no access to care. And that community health center is the only reason I wasn't walking home alone every single week after that. So today, it is all that stands between life and
death for Lee and countless other residents in Amherst. And like we heard earlier, Hyde Park has one of the highest rates of diabetes and heart disease hospitalizations in the city. So, as I'm speaking right now, how many people do you think in our community are suffering from untreated chronic diseases right now, slowly chipping away
at their health like Lee was? And the data we heard was only hospitalization. So, how many people do you think never even made it to the hospital? Seriously, how many do you think it was? Because if that number is any higher than zero, that is exactly why we need a community
health center, not as a privilege, but as the right of every single resident in the Hyde Park community. So, not only will that serve as an accessible location for people when they're sick, which itself is enough of a reason, but it is an epicenter of compassion. It will have people who care, people who
provide support, and people who go out into their community to ask, "Are you okay?" and intervene before a hospital visit is ever necessary. Thank you, Benjamin. Thank you. And thank you for taking action when so many people would rather be quiet or just videotape or do
something like that. Thank you for being someone that actually takes action. It's rare these days. Appreciate it. Uh Randy Brinen, thank you all for being here. Um, when you don't have a community health center, what do you do in High Park?
You call 911. And what does that look like? On April 28th, 2025, there was a 911 call for a child struck by a school bus. It took 13 minutes for the first
arriving ambulance to arrive to help that family. It took a total of 30 minutes, 35 to be exact, to get that child to a hospital for advanced life support. That is far too long for the residents
of High Park. This is by far one of the most extended ETAs in the city of Boston. And that does not happen in anywhere else in Boston. We're asking for a health center, but instead we should be asking for a hospital.
I want to voice my concerns and frustration with the lack of urgent care resources in emergency healthcare in High Park. The current population is roughly between 34 and 36,000. I'm here to enlighten members of the community and city councilors of the
dangers you and your family may face when you're in need of medical attention. We, and I say we because this includes myself and my family also. We're all lucky to be alive. Some of us aren't so much. What I want the public to know is that when you're facing a medical
emergency in High Park, there is only one ambulance to respond for you. one ambulance. That ambulance sits on Dana A shacked up with the DPW facility because quite frankly it does not have a home. What
most of us don't know is that one ambulance is responsible for the entire high park from Reedville to Walcott Square to Clary Square, Fairmont Hill, Georgetown Estates from the 800 block of head high park A heading south from the 700 block of River Street heading south.
In a perfect world, you have a medical emergency in the city of Boston, you get an ambulance outside your door in seven minutes. But we all know this is not a perfect world because you see our president. You see that ambulance on Dana A usually runs from 7 in the morning to 3:00 p.m.
from 3:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. and from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. 24 hours a day. But the problem is it's never there. The ambulance is never there. Boston EMS is so overwhelmed that they're responding to calls
throughout the entire city. So when you have a child struck on Washington Street in High Park with life-threatening injuries, that ambulance is coming from Roxberry, West Roberry, Rosendale, Jamaica Plane,
and sometimes Brighton. It takes another ambulance 15 minutes to arrive. This is a tragedy. The shortness of ambulances have developed a flawed EMS system that puts the public at risk every day. When you need an ambulance in High Park,
it might not be there for you. You may have to wait for another unit coming from a different side of the city. Imagine you or someone you love having a stroke where every second counts to the deterioration of brain cells from the lack of blood and oxygen into your brain. And that ambulance
takes 15 minutes to arrive. Imagine that. Then it takes another 15 to 18 minutes to get you to the hospital. Imagine that. How much time, how much brain cells have been lost for you or your family.
That doesn't happen in other neighborhoods like West Roberry, Rosendale. They have other health facilities. The Faulner, Roxberry, Southoun, South Boston, they have BMC, Brighamin Woman's, Beth Israel, the Northend, Charles Town, East Boston, they have
Mass General and Tus. Carney Hospital was such a crucial resource to our community and it took an absence for people to understand its value. Did you know that same ambulance on Dana A responds to Matapan Dorchester Rosendale Jamaica plane and on busy days
they're in Roxberry leaving the city leaving the citizens of High Park in vulnerable place. Why is this ambulance from High Park in every other town of the city? I don't know. Randy, I'm going to ask you to just wrap it up soon. Thank you. But you don't see that with the police department or the
fire department. There are multiple police officers in High Park at E18 station. There are two fire stations in High Park, but there's one ambulance for the entire High Park. And if you're looking for a place to build a hospital or a wellness center, Industrial Drive
has over 65,000 square footage of land waiting to be built on. We need more health centers. We need more hospitals. Thank you, Randy. Uh, up next, I apologize. It's a little It's a little scribbled here, but is it
a a Sharma or Hinton? Hinton is the last name. Sharon. Sharon. Sharon. Sharon. Sharon. Hinton. I apologize. In my mind, I'm running up to this microphone. Um, my name is Sharon Hinton. I'm the
founder and executive director of Black Teachers Matter. I'm an educator of over 45 years, and I'm a survivor of three strokes, hence the cane. Um, I'm a doctoral candidate in
education at Northeast University. I have a masters in management and masters in education. And I was halfway through getting my masters in public health when I had the stroke, the first stroke last year about August.
I almost died. I called the ambulance and I had this overwhelming pain and ended up going to Brighamin Women's and they told me I had an infection in my bowel, in my blood, in my uterus. And if I hadn't gone to emergency, my organs
would have went septic and I'd have been dead in 48 to 72 hours. My daughter was born through in vitro. Uh doctors told me I would never have kids. She just turned 28. Right.
I want to encourage. Yes, we need a hospital. But Boston has more hospitals, universities, and colleges per square mile than any place else in the world. The father of gynecology
experimented on slave women and babies with no anesthesia. the sister that where is she that talked about in prison, they are still sterilizing black and brown women. And that has always been the case,
especially when you're incarcerated. See, being free from slavery was not part of the book. But that's not what I'm talking about. The women that were here, I didn't get to talk to them. I got to talk to one sister that was going through IVF to encourage her.
When I went to the hospital last year and they didn't know what was wrong with me, they just knew it was an infection. The first response from this blonde, no shade on blondes, was to give me a hysterctomy. She didn't even know what was wrong with me. The racism in the
medical industry towards people of color has always historically been here to burn us, to poison us, to cut us. first incorporated, which was a a stellar drug program in a White House down near RCC, is now abandoned. It was
bought by RCC, but it was a community drug program that was so successful and then when I'm not going to name the place, but it was a well-known health center, got a hold of it, they destroyed it. I am encouraging and they're not here.
The sisters that are here, we have and I think Julia Mahia has said it. We have the indigenous people have what we need to heal ourselves. We came here with that. And so if you're going to have a hospital or another clinic, let me say two things. I was in Columbia Point when
Die Haskins founded that health center in Columbia. But the free health the concept of free health care was the Black Panther Party of Self-Defense. Let's be serious. Free breakfast. Black Panther Party of Self-Defense. I'm not saying that to cause a division. I'm just saying that when people come
together, we can do this. You have to have the will to do it. The sister that said that they have the money and go up to the office to do it. You still have to have the vision to be healed. This country, Western medicine makes more money from you being sick. But we
know what it takes for it not for us to be well. We have to do that. So you can start a worldclass hospital that is different than everything else that's been here. Bringing all the knowledge that we have from all of our cultures to get us healthy to keep us healthy because there's a bigger thing than just
once you have the systems to get better and to survive. Thank you. So I'm encouraging you women to do that. I honor my sisters and my brothers here who have survived and I appreciate counselor Pepin and the other counselors and I don't know who you are. Um Fitzgerald, is that what you mean? Okay.
I don't really know you as much as I know the upheaval. Um, my name is Sharon Hinton and I am a candidate for district 5 city councelor. Thank you. Thank you. And my apologies, folks. I thought there was one sheet, but there is a second sheet. So, I am going to be a little bit stricter on time uh to go
forward. I was allowing people to go over not realizing there was a a a second sheet here. Uh Scott Batty One, two, three, four, five, eight. Uh, thank you, city councilors. Council President Luen. Um, my name is Scott
Batty. I'm a 35-y year resident uh here in High Park. Uh, I will be very brief. I feel I can't add a whole lot more than what's been talked about here tonight. Uh, I'll just say that I've spent a great deal of time the last 10 years volunteering uh for different uh efforts
here in this community to make High Park a better place to live. And going to Marcia's health forum a couple months ago, kind of shocking to find out that uh amongst us that uh this community has
uh the highest mortality rate, infant mortality, maternal mortality. We're not a poor community. statistically we're actually uh not a poor community at all. So I think the issues about access and I
my PCP happened to be Dr. Lowey um Dr. Jay Lowey he was uh his uh brother Dr. Mike was actually speaking at the forum and I think that for a lot of people it was shocking to hear this data about our
own community. I know. I'm shocked. Um, I had a near-death experience in uh 2015. I also have to go to uh those buildings on uh the MGB. I'm a regular at two of those Chestnut Hill buildings.
Uh it's a long drive. I just became a senior citizen officially. I I don't know what will happen five years from now. Maybe I won't be driving. But it's just the fi the alarm here has been pulled. The data is shocking for our
community. So, whatever it takes to bivwack action in this community to get something done, um, we need to do it. And to hear this, the data around the ambulance in this community and the
response time. Again, the data is just shocking as a resident to hear this and I really hope that there's some action. Hope we don't have to wait 5 years for this to happen. Uh, but I'm also aware of the realities of what's going on in
DC, uh, all of that. But anyway, thank you for the time. Thank you, Abby Padet. My name is Abby Padet. I have lived in Hyde Park for seven entire months.
I know very little about what is going on here politically. However, I'm very interested in psychiatric health care. And when I read over all the promotional materials at the at the um the promotional event that they had at the
Pride where I live, I did not see the word psychiatry one time. And I thought, okay, I will speak up. I am the mother of a son who lives with a chronic and severe psychiatric disability. He lives
here. That's why I'm here. He lives in Chelsea in a group home. He has received excellent psychiatric care in Boston throughout his long career with a severe illness. I encourage and actually having
heard the steering committee I realized it wasn't necessary to even stand up here because there are people there who are speaking to this issue. But I will add an additional dimension to it and that is that with a psychiatric facility
in the health care facility here there can be crisis intervention training for the police. That is crucial is absolutely crucial. And that is one of the functions of a health care
facility in a community is to work with the police who don't have training for dealing with people who happen to be in um psychotic episodes on the street. But once they are trained, then they know what to do and we don't have tragic
circumstances. Thank you. Thank you, Abby. Uh, Mimi Mimi Turgit. Good evening everyone. Thank you so much. Um, counselors, um, all my favorite counselors from Hide Park and the rest of the city. Thank you for being here and having this wonderful hearing. Um, I'm Mimi Church, the
president of the Hide Park Neighborhood Association. Um, I don't need to reiterate the data. It's real clear that this is an equity issue. Um, we desperately need a health center here in Hide Park. Uh, everybody has outlined the reasons why. So, I just want to say
to the to the committee, to Marcia, to all the folks who who are working on this, you can depend on the Hide Park Neighborhood Association. anything that you need, any kind of strategy or phone calls or assistance. Um, if you wanted to come to a meeting and present,
whatever it is that we can do, we're on board with you. And so, thank you so much for doing all the hard work and we're here to help you in any way that we can. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mimi Christopher Hart. So, so thank you for holding is we is a
great step. We got a long way to go. And I say that as a resident of high since 2010. I have lived here with my family,
two kids. recently had to move them out of boss Boston because we could not get the special edit services we needed for our son with autism.
And that is a perfect segue to what we think about in a community health center is not only the psychiatric
piece is behavioral supports particularly for families dealing with autism And I have cognitive disabilities.
People see me the wheelchair guy, right? But the reality is demographically the top five
causes of disability are completely invisible. heart disease, brain disues, back problems and diabetes
related conditions. All of those are invisible. Boston as a population has a third of its population
over 65. We also have a third of our population under 30 and we need to focus on both of those population when we talk about
community health. The last point that I will make is yes, we are in some ways a transportation desert,
but I would actually disagree about the drugstore access. If anyone has dealt with the CVS
American food basket, it is painful to deal with. And as we vote, as we all know, when we lost a in square,
we don't have a full drug store in Curry Square. We you have to have a car to get to Walgreens over on
highway. That's a fact of life. There is no 247 pharmacy in high park on public transit.
So we have to think about that as we address and plan a community health center because it does no good to have
care seven days a week without access to prescription 247. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Christopher. Marilyn, is it Marilyn Cortez?
Corkco, right? For a long time. Dr. Big Lowy office building. Okay. Good evening everyone and and thank you u for holding this uh hearing tonight. My name is Dr. Marilyn Smith Corku and I say that facitiously.
I am not a medical doctor but every once in a while I like to show off my PhD. Um I'm actually a very humble servant. I'm an educator by training. So I just know about public service. Um and I know that we have to think about all community. I actually had remarks on my
iPhone, but I'm 74. The battery died, and now I'm hoping that my limited brain cells and the borrowing of a pen will help me retrieve some of my thoughts. But so many things have been said already. Um, but I want to pick up on this notion of integrated health that
was mentioned earlier. I dream a world. I dream a world where we stop thinking in silos and boxes. I'm an educator. I never thought in silos and boxes. I can bring students from 30 years ago that will say that wasn't how she did her thing. We thought out of the
box all the time. I think we have to be thinking out of the box when we think about public health as well um or healthcare in general. I happen to serve on a community coalition for equity and research. It's a a group that's chaired by Michael Curry and others at Harvard
Medical School. Um and we look at medical research. I appreciate Miss Hinton for calling out uh gynecology. I also have recently just made some videos for Harvard Medical School um around um
clinical trials, which may sound kind of weird because we know that clinical trials have not always worked well for people of color, gays, women, the whole nine yards. But I want to call out the names of at least two of the three people of the women I do recall who were
the first women who were treated for gynecology. As Sharon said they were Archana and Sarah. I will tell you if you go to Montgomery Alabama you will find a statue dedicated to them that Dr. Marian practiced on black women enslaved
women to get the basis for all gynecological practices that are going on today. I also have served um as an advocate to change the consent forms in Massachusetts hospitals. Most women and most men, you don't know this either,
but when you go to have surgery in a a teaching hospital, and maybe there's some doctors over there that know this, um that that consent form once you're in a teaching hospital is giving you giving the hospital permission to have those learning medicine, which makes sense.
I'm an educator to have a a place to practice and learn tech strategies. I'm affiliated with a group called at your cervix. Okay. A documentary that I kind of was pushing around the state legislature to say we have to look at this. In
Massachusetts, we have been able to decouple that bill because unbeknownst to most women and men, people were medical doctors or interns, residents were going in and doing gynecological exams on women. It's
documented across the country. Uh men, the same thing could have been happening to you. And you could have been in there for a gallbladder procedure. That's the scary part. So you can check that out to see if I'm lying, but there are enough people in the state house. Comfort is
one that knows about that. But I was provoked to just seconds. I know I can't now. I can't stop. People will tell you that that's why I'm here. Um but no, I'm an educator. I think that the idea of coupling things. We we just heard about a health center here in in this in the high school. I think we have to think
small and broad as opposed to small and limited. Uh we we need to be putting wellness on the table. I have a family with mental health illness for generations. It has we have lived in silence. I don't do it anymore. I worked with the how
about this the mobile van that Harvard uh medical school also runs the mobile minivan. I worked with them to help myself. We worked to on a a a program to deliver mental health counseling and support on that van. I think we have to
access mobile vans, small clinical locations that are really targeted to meet individual need. So, I just pray that you'll just keep pushing and I'll be a little more coherent next time. No, that that was great. Thank you so much.
Uh Domingos D. Roza. No, he's here. He's wearing the Good evening, folks. Thanks for having the hearing. Um, very important. Hi neighbors. I've been in Rosundelle or excuse me, High Park, I want to say 21 years. Um,
it's been a conversation for this community for quite some times. pretty much everyone has said uh 99% of what I was going to speak on, but the reality is a lot of these issues are only going to get worse. Um the city is becoming more and more congested. The
time frame, um again, like one gentleman said earlier, it's it's it's literally about 40 minutes from here to BMC. Um one of the great questions you guys asked was where do we go get our services? I live right here on Kelly's Field, across the street from uh Supreme
Carpet for folks that have been here. I literally across the street from Supreme Carpet and I go to Norwood to use their health center, part of the Atrius um health group. One, it's it's literally closer, less time. Uh I go to Newton
Welssley uh because again, it's closer, less time, but I don't want to go there, you know? I don't want to have to travel to a community. Again, like another individual says, we're looking for providers who look like us, sound like us, come from our backgrounds, but
that's not it's not an option right now. There's a shortage of PCP providers. Um, specialty, don't even talk about that. Sometimes it takes up to a year. Um, I have what they call night blindness. Um, basically my receptor cells in my eyes
are dying and I would go to mass iron and sometimes it'll take me an hour and a half just to get there. I don't take the tea because it's not reliable, but I do know folks who do use the the ride and it's sad to say that what what the
panel had stated it's beyond true. There's some folks who live in the community who are elders and for them to get on the ride they're doing shares. So sometimes their appointment is at 9:00, but they got to leave the house at 5,6 in the morning. And that's not fair to an individual who might have other
medical issues. And I know for my parent, my my only living parent, my mom, she has an overactive bladder. She suffers from IBS. And it's very very difficult to get her somewhere when she feels uncomfortable wearing a diaper. It's a reality for a lot of our elders.
And it's something that if we had a health center here, where are we going to put it? Do we have a location? Because we only have commercial real estate left and that's going towards Reedsville. So, if we're really looking to put this health center, where are we
going to have what city property that we can tap into? Because that's the first piece. We need the property so we can build. And if the city's going to aid us, we need to find that property that's owned by the city so we can take away that red tape because it's going to take prime real estate in High Park. You
know, you're looking at a good three to four million. and then to build the building. I mean, we spent the hundred million on White Stadium. We can find money to build the health center. So, I just wanted to say thank you guys for having this. This is one of the most important pieces of High Park. Uh without it, we we're not going to be able to thrive. Again, Carney Hospital
is is not an option for us anymore. Milton Hospital is the closest and when we call a 911, if it's a if it's a trauma, thank you, Domigos. The closest place is BMC. So, thank you again and guys, have a good night. Appreciate it.
Uh before our last uh testimony, I just want to say that in the back D for anyone who needs the elevator, get out of here. If to to leave, you could see Diane waving her hands in the back of the room. For anyone that needs help taking the elevator, you could go see her. She has the key to the elevator. Uh
Rachel Meiselman. So hello. Uh I think I can probably be most appropriate and helpful if I make my remarks brief. Um so I will swiftly uh but sincerely thank uh the panel
uh for so many poignant uh and insightful testimonies. Uh I was greatly moved. Uh I would also like to thank members of the council uh councelor Pepen, councelor Fitzgerald, council president Lujan, councelor Julia
Mahia uh for um allowing this opportunity to take place and of course I would also like to thank uh director of policy Garcia uh for rounding out the perspectives. Uh I want to say uh just to close out on
a couple two quick points as it's already been uh very eloquently stated, health centers aren't just places for us to be treated holistically. Uh they're also
anchors in the community and they add to the vibrancy and they also add to the desiraability of communities. And I will also say that Boston's a very special place. Incredibly special place.
Education is our currency. And one of the byproducts of education being our currency is that we have these remarkable medical institutions. And so we have people coming from all over the state to be
treated. We have people coming from all over the country and even all over the world. So the idea that there's even one neighborhood, well there's actually two, but the fact that there's a neighborhood without a medical center
that really greatly distresses me and that's it's really something that we have to address address and get on. Thank you for my Thank you for my time. Thank you very much, Rachel. That concludes uh the public testimony. Uh I
will now hand it over for a brief closing remarks from my colleagues. Uh starting with Council Pepen. I just want to say thank you to the residents for for showing out to do things in community is really important for us and to listen to the testimonies that we heard today and especially to
the steering committee. Thank you for all the work you do. Seriously, you make my job easier at the city council and continue to work together to make sure we make this a reality one day. Thank you. Thank you. I want to thank councelor Pepen for um making sure that this happened in community. Want to thank the chair for hosting this. Want to thank
all the members who came out and listened and who have advocated. I hear Marcia Kim Jackson's call to action that no one can do this alone and that the steering committee also needs help from residents to advocate and so that's going to help us all coming together.
So, um I'm listening. I'm working. I you know want this I want us to be moving with some speed to at least get some things off the ground. Um, so we have some results to show for the work and so the High Park can get what every neighborhood deserves. Lastly, want to thank our incredible central staff for being here and for the work that you've
done. As council he stated this week, want to thank you Ethan, want to thank you, Meg, Megan, Ron is not here. Michelle was here early and Candace, we can't do this work without our incredible staff at city hall and so we thank them. Thanks everyone. Have a great night.
I have 30 minutes. No, I'm just joking. So, uh, no, I won't do that to you all. I just want to thank the chair for allowing this to happen, uh, offsite. It really is important for us to utilize these spaces to be in community with you all, especially when it comes to an
issue that you deeply care about and have been advocating for. So, it was important for us to come to High Park to listen to you all um, as you continue to fight. So, for me, I just want to end with gratitude. I think you you know one of the most important things that I've
learned in this time in the chamber is that community voice always has to be centered and our opportunity here lies and where do we go from here and how do we utilize this moment to really go back inside and
uh figure out what are the spaces and places that we can partner with you all to uh do that advocacy that is so um greatly needed. And I want to thank all of the public testimony um for being here and more importantly you um the steering committee that has been uh
relentless around this quest. Have a beautiful night. Thank you. Thank you steering committee. Thank you community for being out here today. Thank you especially to central staff again. Obviously you guys can't get enough shout outs. Uh and especially to
the uh staff of council Pen and my own staff, my chief of staff Amanda Curley uh for working together. It's not easy to put these things together in the community and get all the stuff here and microphone set up. So, uh, always always thank you. Thank you. Thank you for making us look good. Uh, and with that,
the hearing on docket 0306 is adjourned. [Music] [Music]