Women’s health is not just a women’s issue. It is a complex issue with far-reaching effects on families and communities. Yet, despite great medical advances, women still face unique challenges and barriers that require attention and action.
Reproductive Health and Rights
At the core of women’s health are reproductive health issues. Access to comprehensive reproductive health, including family planning services, is essential to women’s overall health. Yet these services are often under threat and underfunded.
Santa Clara County recognizes that access to and delivery of family planning and reproductive health care, including choice of provider, access to contraception and preventive care, and ensuring the affordability of services, is essential to the health and well-being of its residents.
Following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, I took action to protect access to reproductive health care by drafting a resolution reaffirming our county’s continuing support for reproductive rights and calling on Congress to enact national legislation to protect those rights.
Ensuring comprehensive health care access for women in our county has long been a priority of mine, and most recently I worked with my colleague Supervisor Cindy Chavez to make the County’s Obstetrics and Gynecology Urgent Care Program, an innovative pilot program we launched for pregnant women during the COVID-19 pandemic, a permanent service within the Santa Clara Valley Healthcare System.
In 2017, when we learned Planned Parenthood’s lease on its San Antonio Road site was ending, I asked the Board to partner with Planned Parenthood to find a way to continue health care services to patients in North County.
As a result, we opened the county’s first specialty care clinic and pharmacy in North County in 2022. Located within the Planned Parenthood facility on California Street in Mountain View, the clinic and pharmacy will complement the primary care services provided in the area by Planned Parenthood and other local nonprofit partners.
In 2018, when I learned that Mayview Community Health Center, which provides care to low-income families and individuals throughout north Santa Clara County, was reducing its hours of operation, I persuaded the Board of Supervisors to take action to provide emergency stabilization funding to Mayview. With the County’s support, Mayview was able to hire a full-time obstetrician-gynecologist and a part-time nurse practitioner, allowing the health center to keep all clinics open and maintain accessible, affordable health care for women in North County.
The following year, our board allocated approximately $500,000 to make up for Title X funding lost as a result of new federal rules that penalized organizations that made referrals for access to abortion services.
Removing Barriers
As policymakers, it is our duty to break down barriers to healthcare, especially those that affect marginalized communities, and I have been fortunate to have had many opportunities to advocate for women’s health over the years.
To address gaps in critical services for victims of violence, in 2019 I successfully lobbied to expand sexual assault screening to North County, allowing victims to receive testing closer to home.
In 2020, I appealed for funding to support the work of Pink Ribbon Good (PRG) and Cancer CarePoint, who support patients receiving cancer treatment at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. Our county’s support has enabled these two organizations to provide a number of important services to our patients during the COVID pandemic, and in the case of PRG, to expand their services to patients at other hospitals across the county.
Breast Health Services
Given the importance of preventive care, especially breast cancer screening, I recently proposed to county officials that we expand breast cancer screening opportunities to help detect breast cancer early for our residents, especially those with dense breast tissue.
A new law that went into effect this month requires mammography facilities nationwide to inform patients of their breast density on their mammogram reports. This is important because, although the overwhelming majority of women are unaware of their breast density, about half of women have dense breast tissue, and women with extremely dense tissue have about five times higher risk of breast cancer than women with less density.
The FDA’s new mandate will help women make better decisions about additional medical testing and treatments they may need. It’s essentially the same thing that Senate Bill 1538, a bill I authored in California over a decade ago, aimed at improving breast cancer detection in women with dense breast tissue.
In 2023, at my urging, our Board declared the County’s support for the Early Detection Act, a federal bill pending in Congress that would require insurance plans to cover diagnostic testing at no additional cost to patients through insurance copays or deductibles.
Let’s continue to promote policies that support women’s health, educate communities, and ensure that all women can get the care they need at every stage of their lives. Let’s work together to eliminate health disparities and protect reproductive rights.
To all women reading this: I urge you to start taking care of your health today. We hear so many stories of women who are so busy caring for others that they put off taking care of themselves and miss the signs and symptoms. Schedule your mammogram and encourage those around you to do the same. Listen to your heart, and call 911 if you have a stroke or heart attack. It could be the thing that saves your life or the life of a loved one.
Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian represents District 5, which includes Cupertino, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Saratoga, Stamford, parts of San Jose and unincorporated areas of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Stay up to date on news and events happening in District 5 at district5.sccgov.org/newsletter.
