The Department of Health Midtown Clinic hosts several events throughout the year, offering testing services for transgender and homosexual individuals. The purpose of these clinics is to help spread the message of safe sex and to reach communities that experience stigma in society.
These clinics are open to the public and are free of charge. Some of the specialized events will hold mental health screenings, HIV rapid testing and Hepatitis C rapid testing. The clinic also helps individuals apply for Medicaid and Medicare and has Harm Reduction Needle Exchange services.
Andrea Gallegos, the disease prevention program manager, and Martin Martinez, the HIV health educator, are employees with the Department of Health Midtown Clinic, located at 2400 Wellesley Ave NE.
“Our clinic is open to anyone, any day of the week that they want to come,” Gallegos said. “This is open to everyone — transgender, men who sleep with men and anyone in the LGBTQ+ community are always welcome here.”
On the third Tuesday of the month, the Department of Health holds an after-hours clinic called Men’s Night, which is geared towards homosexual men. The Midtown Clinic aims to hold the Transgender Wellness Clinic three to four times per year — this year’s final session was in August. The clinic is preparing for the first Transgender Wellness Clinic event of 2018, held on Jan. 12.
Local organizations like the Transgender Resource Center, NMPower, First Nations, the UNM Truman Center and the UNM LGBTQ Resource Center partner with the Department of Health Midtown Clinic to provide services and specialized events.
“What’s great about these clinics and our partnering organization participation is that they advertise these events as much as possible,” Martinez said. “We rely a lot on our partnering community organizations.”
These resources also specialize in finding employment for local LGBTQ+ individuals, as well as providing free boxes of food and holding specialized clinics and support groups.
NMPower is a group that works with the Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains Center that specializes in working with young people who identify as LGBTQ+ and provides services after hours for young individuals ranging in age from 13 to 30. NMPower also holds support groups after hours three to four times a week.
“We will always try to do whatever we can to help,” Gallegos said. “If we have the chance to partner with specialists like mental health providers and bring them into these events, the more resources we can give to participants in these clinics, the better.”
The Department of Health also has a goal of 100 percent result rate for STI/STD testing, meaning that every participant who gets the initial screening completed will have an incentive to return to attain the test results. This incentive may be in the form of a free meal provided to participants or gift cards given at the initial screening session and when receiving test results.
“We encourage every participant to complete the testing cycle in the following two weeks,” Martinez said. “These incentives help the participants feel comfortable, and to ensure that they are offered the services they may need and are aware of the resources offered in the Albuquerque area.”
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The availability of this resource has grown exponentially since its beginning four years ago.
“We started with one event, and it has slowly gained a greater frequency,” Gallegos said. “It is expanding as the years go on, which is a great thing.”
This clinic is unique to the state of New Mexico, and unique in the U.S. — the Department of Health Midtown Clinic is the only location for free walk-in STD testing in the state.
“There is no other state that does something to this extent with services provided, incentives given and actions taken by health providers,” Martinez said.
Given that this clinic is so unique on a national level, employees of the Department of Health are participating in the National Transgender Conference in Oakland, California in November to show what efforts are being made to provide services for these communities and to discuss resources and advancements in science involved in testing and hormone therapy.
Rebecca Brsseau is a news reporter at the Daily Lobo. She can be contacted at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @R_Brusseau.
