Chair Schulman on sexual health clinic funding and rapid STI testing
Schulman asks about the $4M for rapid STI testing at Chelsea, Fort Greene, Morrisania, and Corona clinics. Martin describes the sexual health clinics as safety net of safety nets, with a new Quickie Express clinic opening in Morrisania and renovations at Morrisania and Corona.
So I'm going to talk about sexual health now.
DOHMH's sexual health clinics provide low to no cost sexually transmitted infection testing, treatment, prevention, and HIV-related services.
The fiscal 2027 executive plan includes $4 million in additional city and state funding beginning in fiscal 2027 to support rapid STI testing at Chelsea, Fort Greene, Marisania, and Corona sexual health clinics.
How will the additional $4 million for rapid STI testing be allocated across the four clinic sites, and what services will the funding further support?
Yeah, thank you for this question, Chair.
This is an integral part of our public health fabric here in the city, the ability to offer these low- to no-cost services across our network of public health clinics.
Our sexual health clinics in particular provide this sort of safety net.
Safety net of the safety net functions for this city.
Folks don't have to worry about immigration status, insurance status.
There's no...
Mine towards payment.
We are able to, at this point, say that we're operating, we're going to be opening up a third Quickie Express clinic in Morrisania.
That's not by accident.
We look at the data, and the data tells us that there are rising STD rates in this area, so we're going to meet the demand and the need.
And get the resources that we need in that specific area.
The funding is supporting renovations at Morissania as well as Corona and gives us the ability to really shore up our lab equipment, our testing kits, and the specialized reagents that we need.