The Los Angeles LGBT Center provides health services at the McDonald/Wright Building in Hollywood. (Beverly Press/Park Labrea News file photo)

The Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Health Services continues to treat members of the LGBT community during the pandemic and remains the patients’ well-being.

“Health services at the center has very sacred roots in the early days of HIV when it became this place for people to come for care when nobody else would see them,” said Dr. Kaity Duffy, the center’s Chief Medical Officer. “That’s such a sacred history to have, to be this medical home. We have since grown and opened our doors to the wider queer community.”

The center, one of the largest providers of LGBT health and mental health care, is also one of the few federally qualified health centers with providers who specialize in primary care for LGBT individuals and people with HIV. During the first nine months of 2021, the center’s medical clinic has cared for more than 7,500 patients, the pharmacy has filled 142,000 prescriptions, and the mental health services department, including psychiatry, has cared for 3,175 patients. Also, the center’s sexual health and education program worked with 8,700 patients. Approximately 4,392 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered to clients and staff.

Eric Rodriguez oversees a team of clinic liaisons who are the first point of contact at the center’s main medical facility – the McDonald/Wright Building at 1625 Schrader Blvd. in Hollywood.

“It’s been a call to action during a pandemic,” Rodriguez said. “Health care doesn’t stop, it never stops. Patient care doesn’t stop. We can equate this to what happened in the 1980s and ’90s with HIV and AIDS. You have to step up and be there for your community. It’s kind of a make-or-break situation, and we just have to keep going.”

In March 2020, the center implemented a telehealth platform that enabled routine appointments to be conducted online or by phone. Approximately 80% of this year’s visits have been done through telehealth.

“I was very happy and surprised when we were able to transition to a telehealth environment within two weeks of the initial pandemic lockdown,” said nurse Claudia Alvarez, the center’s director of performance improvement. “We’ve learned from this past year that certain things can be accomplished without all of us having to be under the same roof.”

Jeffrey Rodriguez, who oversees sexual health and education programming for the center, reiterated the importance of testing for HIV and sexually transmitted infections. He also said it is important to maintain PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) and PEP (post-exposure prophylaxis) services.

“Other agencies that were doing testing completely shut down. They just stopped because they didn’t know what they were, or were not, capable of doing,” Rodriguez said. “We felt like the center still needed to be offering testing and treatment. Sexual contact was still happening. It may have slowed down for some people, but patterns of behavior don’t necessarily change overnight even during a pandemic.”

The center also reported an increased need at the Trans Wellness Center at 3055 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 360, in Koreatown. The Trans Wellness Center served 600 more clients during fiscal year 2021 than during the previous fiscal year.

“Some clients didn’t even know COVID-19 had hit Los Angeles yet because they didn’t have regular access to news. So, we were breaking the news to them,” TWC site manager Cameron Varney said. “It made us appreciate how needed the services are that we provide. It made us feel like we truly have a sense of purpose.”

For information, visit lalgbtcenter.org.