DENVER — A health directory is helping to bridge the gap in healthcare access for Colorado’s Black community.
For India Bonner, getting to Colorado has been a journey.
"When I was young, we moved to Colorado, more in the Colorado Springs area, and I grew up there. I was home-schooled there for a couple of years. Then we moved up to Aurora," said Bonner.
Once in Aurora, Bonner went to high school, and she said that was when she found her passion for practicing medicine.
"I was taking AP biology, and we got to the anatomy section, and I was like, wait a minute, I really like this," she said.
It wasn't only the classroom lesson that introduced Bonner to the medical field but also the lack of doctors she noticed across the Denver metro.
"Throughout my time, like even volunteering, and with my personal experiences, with my family, I didn't see a lot of Black physicians. That really pushed me to [be] a medical doctor," she said.
Bonner is not alone in feeling that way. That is one reason the Colorado Black Health Collaborative started the Colorado Black Health Resource Directory.
"As that's something that the community really wanted. They felt it was really needed here in Colorado, and so we were happy to try to do that. Now, we were small and didn't have a lot of money, but we were very resourceful, and we were able to get the first resource directory completed in 2010," said Dr. Terri Richardson, vice chair of the Colorado Black Health Collaborative.
Dr. Richardson said the resource guide lists Black Doctors, Advanced Practice Providers, Dentists, different community support systems, and more.
"I think there are about 20 or so Black health-oriented organizations that we've kind of highlighted in this particular edition. That's something that the Connect for Health people really wanted to highlight," said Dr. Richardson.
The guide started as a hard-copy book and has now been released online. Its goal is to empower the Black community to make the best decisions about their health. The directory was created with the help of Connect For Health Colorado.
"We have relationships with the community, and what the community needs, and because of that, we can really make the most of that relationship that we have with the community," Bonner said.
While Bonner is getting ready for her residency, she hopes to work in Colorado and help her community by becoming a new resource in the black medical directory.
"When I was going through my training, I saw that a lot of Black people were coming in with traumatic injuries or any emergency surgery," explained Bonner. "That's really an area where I want to focus my work, improving access to care, elective surgery for Black patients."
If you would like to check out the guide, you can find it here or support their next edition by clicking here.
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