Philly doctor knocks down barriers to help African American community get coronavirus tests
After seeing evidence that the coronavirus was disproportionately impacting the African American community, Dr. Ala Stanford got a group of doctors in Philadelphia together to bring tests directly to people who need them. Since then, she has been working to address what she calls an "access issue."
"I reached out to the city and said, 'How can I help with the efforts?' There were no resources being allocated to those communities, and so with a group of doctor friends, we got our supplies together and we went to the streets, to the people, to offer up the tests without the barriers that were typically seen with what was offered from the city and many academic institutions in our city," Stanford said on CBSN Monday.
In some of the places her team has gone, "everyone has had health insurance and they still couldn't get a test," Stanford said. The barriers to testing included people getting turned away if they weren't old enough, if they walked to a drive-up site, if they weren't a health care worker or if they didn't have an appointment, she said.
In addition, she noted, "A lot of the city and academic places, you show up and you see more police than you see people actually getting tested."
Stanford said she and her team have established trust with the community and have worked to dispel misinformation about the virus and testing.
"Our approach, it's very personalized. We help people fill out the paperwork if they need it. We take the time to alleviate the fears they may have and dispel the myths about the testing, and we're there because we care, not because someone forced us to be there," she said. "And that is really showing — when the city has a testing site literally two blocks away and there's no one there, but everyone is with us. And that, I believe, is because of the trust that we have garnered amongst the people in the communities."
The disproportionate impact the coronavirus has had on the African American community may be explained in part because of a higher percentage of underlying medical conditions. But Stanford said there are also other issues keeping people from getting the care they need.
"Certainly if you're not in the greatest shape of health, when any disease hits you, you may not fare as well, but it hasn't even been that. It's if you show up at the ER and you can't come in because you don't have a referral from a doctor, but you meet all the criteria — that's an access issue," she said.