ABOVE: Open Door Health Grand Opening (Photo from Facebook)
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) | Rhode Island’s first health clinic for the LGBTQ community has opened in Providence to offer a variety of services including primary care, HIV prevention and treatment, and express screening for sexually transmitted infections.
Open Door Health, an initiative of the Rhode Island Public Health Institute, opened March 2.
It will fill an important role for members of the state’s LGBTQ community, who disproportionately experience poor health outcomes as well as a lack of access to culturally competent care, Executive Director Amy Nunn said.
Tiara Mack, a member of the clinic’s community advisory board, said navigating the health care system as a black woman is already difficult, but it was compounded after she came out as lesbian.
“I was excited to see that there is now an affirming place where my community won’t have fear of sharing their identity with their doctors,” she told The Providence Journal.
