Health
In 2011, there were 103 reported homicides in Oakland. Most of the victims were young black males who were killed with firearms in East and West Oakland. This is a continuation of a pattern in Oakland that has been the case for years and is closely tied to the economic and social realities of young people living in the city’s poorest areas.
On Saturday, 44-year-old Irma Lira will walk onto a stage at Children’s Hospital Oakland, sit in a barber’s chair, and have her head shaved. Cheers will ring out as her thick black tresses, and her full, curled set of bangs, fall to the floor. A hat for donations will pass through the lively crowd, and people will eagerly fill it with money. And Lira won’t be alone—about 200 people will be shorn clean to benefit childhood cancer research through an organization called St. Baldrick’s.
Some Adult Day Healthcare Centers in Alameda County that were initially relieved to hear that their state funding would not be entirely cut, thanks to a settlement reached between disability rights activists and the State Department of Health Care Services, are now worried. At LifeLong Medical Care in East Oakland, more patients have been found ineligible for the new Medi-Cal subsidized program set to replace adult day healthcare than LifeLong staffers expected.
Cities like Oakland would like to see more residents commuting by bike. But urban biking is risky, and sometimes both drivers and cyclists aren’t sure how to keep things safe.
Twenty-five years ago, Norma Rodriguez went to a training session for the Child Assault Prevention Training Center. When she agreed to participate in the session, she didn’t realize that two weeks of learning how to prevent and recognize child abuse would change her life. She didn’t know that intense training would soon become her career.
It’s almost springtime in Oakland, and that means Notes & Words is back. The annual event brings authors and musicians together on stage at The Fox Theater to benefit Children’s Hospital Oakland Research.
A year ago possibilities meant nothing to Mari Hernandez. Possibilities were for American citizens—people who spoke English or had money. They certainly weren’t for undocumented immigrant women whose husbands beat them into a life of silence.
As a child, West Oakland resident Jack B. Pierson, 27, hated wearing the pink and purple outfits his mother chose for him. He craved the sensible, utilitarian clothing his older brother got to wear, the kind that permitted a more rough-and-tumble lifestyle. Pierson was a girl back then.
For Black History Month, Blood Centers of the Pacific held a blood drive to raise awareness for sickle cell and the urgent need for blood.