(Special to the NNPA from Our
Weekly) —
Few American adults
with sickle cell anemia are getting a
recommended medication that can
help them manage pain, breathing
problems and other debilitating
symptoms, according to a new study.
Using a national database, re-
searchers found that less than one-
quarter of sickle cell patients who
should have been taking a drug
called hydroxyurea actually were.
“This is a medication that’s
highly beneficial and yet most
people aren’t getting it,” said Dr.
George Buchanan, a sickle cell
expert, and a professor at the
University of Texas Southwestern
Medical Center at Dallas, who was
not involved in the new study.
Findings from the study were
reported in the April 28 issue of
the
Journal of the American
Medical Association.
Sickle cell anemia is an inherit-
ed disease that mainly affects peo-
ple of African, South American or
Mediterranean descent. In the
United States, about one in 500
African-American children are
born with the condition, according
to the U.S. National Heart, Lung,
and Blood Institute (NHLBI).
Experts contend that the central
problem in sickle cell is that the
body produces red blood cells that
are crescent-shaped, rather than
disc-shaped. Those abnormal cells
tend to be sticky and can block
blood flow — causing symptoms
such as fatigue and shortness of
breath.
Many people with sickle cell also
suffer sudden bouts of pain due to
poor blood flow. And according to
treatment guidelines released last
year, adults who have three or more
pain “crises” within a year should
be prescribed hydroxyurea.
Hydroxyurea was originally
developed as a cancer drug, but it
treats sickle cell by prompting the
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EALTH
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Page 7
May 18 - May 24, 2015
THE LOUISIANA WEEKLY -
YOUR MULTICULTURAL MEDIUM
Few Sickle Cell patients receive beneficial drug
New Orleans area gets $1.8M funding for health centers
Depression, Black superwoman
syndrome and suicide
body to make fetal hemoglobin—
an oxygen-carrying protein in red
blood cells. That, in turn, helps
keep red blood cells from becom-
ing stiff, sticky and crescent-
shaped, according to the NHLBI.
“My own view is, the vast major-
ity of people with sickle cell anemia
should be taking hydroxyurea,” said
Buchanan, who helped develop the
latest treatment guidelines.
He added that people who work
in the field have long known that
hydroxyurea is underused, but this
study offers hard numbers.
“The findings are not surprising,
but they’re very disappointing,”
Buchanan said.
So why aren’t more people who
need it getting the drug? There are
several issues, said Dr. Michael
DeBaun, who directs the sickle cell
treatment center at Vanderbilt
University in Nashville, Tenn.
For one, DeBaun explained, there
are few hematologists who special-
ize in treating sickle cell patients—
especially adults. So people with
the disease often see only a pri-
mary care doctor.
But because sickle cell is rela-
tively rare, DeBaun said, most pri-
mary care doctors have little expe-
rience treating it.
Add to that the fact that they may
know little about hydroxyurea.
“It’s a cancer drug,” DeBaun
said, “and most internists do not go
through their training learning how
to manage a chemotherapy agent.”
Another issue, DeBaun said, is
that many sickle cell patients are
low-income Blacks. Some may be
uninsured or “under-insured,” and
possibly have no consistent health
provider. Plus, they often live in
areas, whether rural or urban, that
lack specialists in the disease,
DeBaun explained.
But because sickle cell is rela-
tively rare, DeBaun said, most pri-
mary care doctors have little expe-
rience treating it.
Add to that the fact that they may
know little about hydroxyurea.
“It’s a cancer drug,” DeBaun
said, “and most internists do not
go through their training learning
how to manage a chemotherapy
agent.”
Another issue, DeBaun said, is
that many sickle cell patients are
low-income Blacks. Some may be
uninsured or “under-insured,” and
possibly have no consistent health
provider. Plus, they often live in
areas, whether rural or urban, that
lack specialists in the disease,
DeBaun explained.◊
ters nationwide that will receive
funding.
“These new clinics, provided
through funding from the
Affordable Care Act will allow
easier access to health care in the
neighborhoods that have been tra-
ditionally underserved,” said Rep.
Cedric Richmond.
The funding comes from $101
million in Affordable Care Act
funds dedicated to assisting 164
new health center sites in 33
states and two U.S. Territories to
deliver comprehensive primary
healthcare services.
According to DHHS, the new
centers are projected to increase
access to healthcare services for
nearly 650,000 patients nation-
wide.
“The Affordable Care Act has led
to unprecedented increases in access
to health insurance. Part of building
on that progress is connecting peo-
ple to the care they need,” said
Secretary Burwell. “Health centers
are keystones of the communities
they serve. Today’s awards will
enable more individuals and fami-
lies to have access to the affordable,
quality health care that health cen-
ters provide. That includes the pre-
ventive and primary care services
that will keep them healthy.”
The DHHS reports that more
than 550 new health center sites
have opened in the last four years
as a result of the Affordable Care
Act, and that nearly 1,300 health
centers operate more than 9,000
service delivery sites, providing
care to nearly 22 million patients
— nearly five million more
patients than at the beginning of
2009.
Statewide, a total of six health cen-
ters in Louisiana will receive ACA
funding totaling $3,500,975 to serve
nearly 20,000 patients. Those cen-
ters are Marillac Community Health
Centers ($704,167) and Odyssey
House Louisiana ($691,667) in New
Orleans; Primary Care Providers for
a Healthy Feliciana ($441,667) in
Clinton; Southwest Louisiana
Primary Health Care Center, Inc.
($545,000) in Opelousas; Access
Health Louisiana ($551,807) in
Luling; and Winn Community
Health Center, Inc. ($566,667) in
Winnfield.
“Community health centers are
on the frontlines of providing
dependable, accessible primary
care. With unprecedented num-
bers of Americans with health
insurance these facilities are
more vital than ever before,”
Rep. Richmond said.◊
New Orleans, LA—The Depart-
ment of Health and Human Ser-
vices announced last week that two
New Orleans community health
centers will receive $1.8 million to
provide comprehensive primary
healthcare services to communities
that are currently under-serviced.
Odyssey House Louisiana,
Inc. and Marillac Community
Health Centers in New Orleans
are among the 164 health cen-
By Shantella Y. Sherman
Contributing Writer
(Special to the NNPA from the
Afro-American Newspaper)
—
She was the founder of For Brown
Girls and, later, the #DarkSkin-
RedLip Project, as well as several
online movements celebrating
dark-skinned Black women. By all
accounts, she was a spirited, beau-
tiful, trooper who inspired millions
of women around the world to
embrace their natural, God-given
beauty. So when Karyn Washing-
ton’s death, at 22, was reported as
a suicide, disbelief, fear, and anger
spread through social media circles
like a wildfire.
Fellow blogger Christelyn Kara-
zin lamented the loss as an indict-
ment of the Black community and
its Black Superwoman Schema that
promotes seeking prayer over med-
ical intervention. “You feel shame
when you feel your mind is break-
ing. There is no safe place. To admit
to any mental frailty is to invite
scorn and mockery, accusations of
acting white. Because only white
people suffer from depression. Only
white people commit suicide. Black
women are strong. Black women are
not human. And this is a LIE,”
Karazin charged.
Some soothed the wounds of
their grief over Washington’s death
by attaching it to the sorrow she
endured in losing her mother to
cancer just weeks earlier. But then
Titi Cree Branch, the always smil-
ing 45-year-old co-founder of Miss
Jessie’s Curly Hair Products, re-
portedly ended her life, and the
nation began to take note. Depres-
sion is real. African-American
women, though referred to using
descriptors such as “strong,” “long
suffering,” and even “angry,” are
more often masking overwhelming
feelings of frustration, hopeless-
ness, and fear.
A growing body of literature
indicates that African-American
women rely on religious beliefs
and practices to cope with health
problems including depression,
with roughly 90.4 percent report-
ing their faith as a means of man-
aging stressors. Additionally,
researchers found that the low use
of mental health services among
Black women was coupled with
high rates of premature termina-
tion from counseling.
“Many African Americans are
raised with an internalized sense of
connectedness to religious values,
which provide a sense of purpose,
power, and self-identity,” reported
psychologist
Madonna
G.
Constantine.
Prayer and religion are often cited
as primary coping skills used by
African-American women in deal-
ing with personal problems and in
comparison with Caucasians, Afri-
canAmericans are far more likely to
endorse the use of prayer and spiri-
tual coping strategies over profes-
sional or medicinal therapies. But
what happens when faith wavers?
In the case of Monica Deen*,
weakened faith and an unwilling-
ness to admit her issues to church
elders — including her inability to
cope — caused her to spiral almost
out of control for several years.
“Some issues do not belong in
church — that’s what I felt,” said
Deen, who found herself caught in
an extramarital affair with her super-
visor. “This relationship was tied to
my own lack of self-esteem, which
made me feel like I could not end it.
I felt it would jeopardize my job and
family if I did the right thing and
ended it. But there was no way I
would tell the church and I felt like
God would not forgive me.”
In addition to the emotional tur-
moil Deen felt, she spent four
years managing hypertension and
bulimia as a result of the affair. The
day she felt overwhelmed enough
to plot her own death, Deen said,
she found enough courage to con-
fess to her husband. “I stood in
front of him shaking like a leaf and
crying hysterically. Thank God he
had enough compassion to sign me
into a clinic,” Deen said. “I began
talking about all of the things that I
couldn’t tell anyone and the guilt
and depression lifted. Every day I
acknowledge that I am only human
and I give myself leeway to make
mistakes and recover from them.”
Researchers, including Cheryl L.
Woods-Giscombe, have suggested
that health disparities in African-
American women, including
Deen’s hypertension, adverse birth
outcomes, lupus, obesity, and
untreated depression, can be
explained by stress and coping.
The Strong Black Woman / Super-
woman role has been highlighted
as a phenomenon influencing
African-American women’s expe-
riences and reports of stress.
“Cultural and psychological fac-
tors of the Superwoman role, such
as focusing on the needs of others
and making personal health a sec-
ondary or tertiary priority, might
explain delays in health-seeking
behaviors, limited adherence to
recommendations made by health
care professionals, and lower rates
of screening procedures for condi-
tions that are treatable if caught in
the early stages,” Woods-
Giscombe concluded.
Participants’ characterizations of
the Superwoman role were group-
ed into five major topic areas: obli-
gation to manifest strength, obliga-
tion to suppress emotions, resist-
ance to being vulnerable or
dependent, determination to suc-
ceed despite limited resources, and
obligation to help others. Woods-
Giscombe made recommendations
that physicians utilize a culture-
centered methodology in order to
better understand the emotional
needs of Black female patients.
This may include more aggressive
attempts to bridge the church with
treatment for depression.
“Health care practitioners who
are aware of the potential influence
of the Superwoman role on health
behaviors might have an enhanced
ability to understand the lived
experiences of their patients and
the ability to integrate appropriate
methods of patient education and
counseling into their clinical prac-
tice,” she said.
Terrie Williams, public relations
mogul and author of
Black Pain,
said in an interview with Tom
Joyner, that the Superwoman
Syndrome has caused many Black
women to suffer unduly from their
own unrealistic expectations.
“At some point all of us may
encounter that one thing, person or
event that breaks us into separate
pieces; and the life we built or at
least portrayed can’t keep going
without the other part being self-
medicated,” Williams said. “That
self-medication can come in the
form of drugs (illegal or prescrip-
tion) or alcohol, engaging in inap-
propriate relationships, risky sexu-
al behavior, overeating, gambling,
working, and violence. These are
all symptoms, that, yes, need to be
treated, but don’t get at the heart of
the problem – undiagnosed and
untreated depression.”
Williams, who said she had a
nervous breakdown several years
ago, has been a stalwart advocate
for Black women seeking the help
of professional therapists, who
tend to hear what family and
friends cannot.
“I treasure my weekly talk ther-
apy sessions – they are my lifeline.
It is an opportunity for me to speak
my pain, my struggles, my gains
and losses… I have learned to let
the tears flow, to slow down, to
seek professional help and to look
for healthy ways to put my pieces
back together – through exercise,
proper nutrition, planned down-
time and by surrounding myself
with people not afraid to pull my
coattails when they see something
is wrong,” Williams said.◊
