Red Bank Library Panel Discusses Racial Disparities in Health Care
By Sunayana Prabhu
RED BANK – “Why are we still vulnerable at the hands of the medical community?” asked Carol Penn, D.O., family physician and fourth generation Red Banker, as she opened the discussion on how racial heath care disparities affect the community, the latest subject in the Red Bank Library’s discussion series, Let’s Talk About Race. The award-winning program series is celebrating its eighth year and Aug. 31, via a Zoom session, unpacked racial disparity within the medical community from the 1920s to present.
“Here in this community, there was a medical apartheid that was practiced, and what is important for people to know is that it’s not abstract,” said Penn, whose family lived on East Sunset Avenue in the borough in 1926. She spoke about the death of her then 9-year-old uncle – “little Joseph” – from appendicitis because none of the hospitals in the area would admit black patients.
At the time, Penn noted, Dr. James Parker, who provided health care for diverse communities in Red Bank, “did all he could do with home care because no black doctors in these areas had admitting privileges in any of the hospitals – Riverview or Monmouth Medical or Jersey Shore.” Penn said medical help was “withheld” and “these decisions, these policies, this hatred, cost people their lives. It’s something that’s real and we are still downstream of these policies.”
Rev. Dianne Watson-Kendall from Pilgrim Baptist Church has been a practicing nurse for 40 years. She said even now diverse communities with language barriers are often at risk of racial bias in hospitals. “I’ve heard nurses tell the patient, ‘If you can’t speak English, I cannot help you,’ ” Kendall said.
“For many years, differences in health outcomes seemed obviously connected to financial and access issues,” Phyllis Kinsler, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Central New Jersey, said. She addressed maternal mortality and delayed treatment, specifically in the area of reproductive health, and particularly in prenatal health. “We have enormous disparities that are attributable only to racial differences. And it took a while to recognize that and, God help us, it’s taking much longer to respond to it.”
Leslie Kahn, an attendee, noted how racial bias works across all income levels. “Serena Williams almost died in childbirth, so even financial success doesn’t guarantee good health care,” Kahn said, adding that the answer may lie in increasing the number of people of color who work in the medical field.
Kinsler further explained that it took time for “obstetricians, who saw mostly middle- and upper-class women of all races in their office, to really recognize that the well-dressed professional black woman in the office was still struggling with her health outcomes in a way that the rest of his patients weren’t.”
Impact 100, a national grant-funding organization that addresses a community’s most pressing needs, has chapters around the country. According to the Impact 100 Jersey Coast website, “New Jersey is investing in culturally sensitive health services, including doulas or nonclinical pregnancy/birth coaches, to improve birth outcomes.”
Impact 100 Jersey Coast “gave out funds this year specifically for the VNA (Visiting Nurse Association) to train doulas in black communities in an effort to change racial disparity among unequal outcomes in maternal health,” said Valerie Brett, the consultant database administrator for the chapter. Brett, one of the discussion panelists, said an engaged community as well as a diverse workforce could change the dynamic of unequal outcomes in health care.
She added that VNA’s program created jobs within a local black community in health care. “This program is able to take this ancillary (health care) service traditionally for rich white women and bring it to the communities of color here in Monmouth County,” Brett said.
Parker Health Center Makes a Difference
Located on Shrewsbury Avenue in Red Bank, the Parker Family Health Center is a volunteer-based free clinic for the uninsured in Monmouth County. Suzy Dyer, Parker Family Health Center executive director, and Eugene Cheslock, M.D., its founder and past president, were part of the discussion. They were joined by special guest Linda Parker, daughter of Dr. James Parker.
African-American father and son physicians, Dr. James Parker Sr. and Dr. James Parker Jr., were well-known Red Bank West Siders who together served diverse communities in the borough for over 80 years. Their legacy has continued with the Parker Family Health Center, founded by Cheslock July 29, 2000. The health center at 211 Shrewsbury Ave. serves as an initial health care access point for uninsured and under-insured patients. Linda Parker, who joined the Zoom discussion from Florida, expressed gratitude to Parker Family Health Center for carrying forward the legacy of her father. “I’m so proud of what has been done in our hometown. Not just because of the name Parker but just because we did it together,” she said.
With the help of the Monmouth County Health Department and Pilgrim Baptist Church, the health center vaccinated “not just the black and brown community. It was the elderly as well. It was people who didn’t have access to the internet,” Dyer said. “If COVID taught us anything, it is that the health of one of us impacts the health of all of us.”
“I don’t think a Parker (health center) would be possible in a lot of other communities,” Cheslock said. He also noted a silver lining in the pandemic: “It’s because of our diversity, but it’s also because of our shared understanding that we’re all in the same boat together. And that came out in COVID because folks from Rumson, Fair Haven, Little Silver and Colts Neck couldn’t get the vaccine. They came to Parker and they were standing next to a gentleman who might cut their lawn or a lady who might do their laundry and they found out that we are all the same. And that’s what makes Parker great. And I think that’s what makes Red Bank great.”
Let’s Talk About Race is a series of programs the Red Bank Public Library began in 2015 in an effort to expand dialogue and understanding among people of the various races, religions and ethnic backgrounds that make up the Red Bank-area community. In 2018, the series won the NJ State Library’s Multicultural Award, making the Red Bank Public Library one of the leading institutions in the state promoting diversity education.
Video recordings of the LTAR series can be found on the library’s YouTube channel. The next discussion in the series is scheduled for Sept. 28.
The article originally appeared in the September 9 – 14, 2022 print edition of The Two River Times.
This article was updated September 16, 2022.
