For Immediate Release: Contact: Matuya Brand
March 30, 2005 617.722 .1673

HEALTH DISPARITIES TESTIMONIES REVEALED AT WILKERSON HEARING

BOSTON – Senator Dianne Wilkerson and Representative Peter Koutoujian co-chaired the first and only statewide public hearing yesterday held by the Commission to Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities. The hearing featured testimony from the public suggesting ways to improve disparities within the Commonwealth.

“Today’s testimony has conformed and affirmed that what we were thinking and talking about is moving in the right direction. It’s a very daunting study, not just as simple as development a legislative response,” said Wilkerson of the final Health Care Disparities report that is to be released in November. “It is an issue of safety and community, heart disease, housing policy, housing access, access to recreation and the ability to exercise, nutritious foods, and so much more. We need to figure out from the legislative policy perspective, how we can go one step further while have the opportunity to do so.”

A variety of oral and written testimonies were delivered, which depicted the subject of health care disparities as a complex local issue. Among the many topics discussed, there were concerns in areas such as diseases that usually attack certain ethnicities, such as prostate cancer and diabetes; the need for a universal readability in the Patient Bill of Rights; the current dearth of interpreters for many languages in all aspects of the health care industry; the lack of diversity within the health care profession; and a need to more closely monitor disparities as they occur.

"I thought there was a tremendous amount of compelling testimony generated at the hearing," said Koutoujian. "We've been working on this issue non-stop since the commission began meeting last November, but the hearing showed there is a lot of new information that will be invaluable to us as we move forward."

Currently serving her seventh term in the Massachusetts Senate, Senator Wilkerson’s Senate District includes the Boston neighborhoods of Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Chinatown, Jamaica Plain, Mission Hill, Roxbury, the South End, and parts of the Fenway, Dorchester, and Mattapan.