Many of the health providers at Morrisania’s 1309 Fulton Ave., a building owned by New York City’s health department, provide services for a Bronx clientele in dire need of better health outcomes. On the building’s second-floor, the Morrisania Sexual Health Clinic is exploring the realm of positive outcomes when abortion care is unfettered and universally accessible.
The city-run clinic became the first in the nation to offer abortion pills for free, as a part of a $1.2 million rollout for sexual health services last month. The city’s rollout of abortion services will eventually expand access to four public health clinics and provide an avenue to the procedure at no cost to patients, health officials said.
In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision last summer striking down Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the city strengthened its abortion protections including measures from the Adams administration that paved the way for free medication abortions.
Of the 32 patients the Morrisania Sexual Health Clinic has treated since the city’s rollout, 34% have been Bronx residents, with 19% Spanish-speaking only patients and 16% age 21 or younger, Joaquin Aracena, assistant commissioner of the city Bureau of Public Health Clinics told the Bronx Times.
And there’s been positive results for detection and treatment, including the detection of asymptomatic chlamydia — the Bronx was the ninth-highest county in the U.S. in reported chlymidia cases in 2019 — and treatment and contraception plans for patients with HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STI).
In November, the Abortion Access Hub — a confidential service connecting those seeking abortion care…
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