Transhealth Northampton promises patient centered care

Date: 5/18/2021

NORTHAMPTON – With primary care expected to come soon, Transhealth Northampton will provide mental health care, primary care and other services to transgender and gender-diverse people.

Dallas Ducar, Transhealth Northampton’s chief executive officer, said Transhealth is an independent organization.

“We are an independent, comprehensive health center that is fully dedicated to trans and gender-diverse folks. We are not tethered to any larger institution, we see folks across the life span, and we offer primary care, mental health care, community care, and really expanding the barriers of what care looks like,” she said.

Along with providing care to transgender people, Ducar said their workforce is representative of their patients.

“I think what we are doing is pretty amazing, throughout our history, trans and gender-diverse people really looked to each other for support and affirmation, and I think we are forwarding that mission by aiming for a staff that represents the population we serve,” she said.

At its core, Ducar said Transhealth is patient-centered care for all of its patients.

“This is really patient centered care, it is asking folks what you want, who do you want to be, and how do you want to get there. That may involve mental health, that may involve primary care, that may involve strictly hormones, it may involve everything, but it is up to the individual and we really try to eliminate barriers to access,” she said.

Currently, Ducar said Transhealth offers a variety of mental health services with primary care on the way.

“We offer psychiatric care, and we offer short term therapy too. We have a wonderful psychiatric nurse practitioner who sees all ages but really has an affinity for kids. Our therapy is geared around short-term therapy, which is about three months or so. We also have a nurse care coordinator who works with our mental health folks to get people into long term therapy as well,” she said.

After some slight delays due to the Massachusetts licensing process, Ducar said she expects primary care services to be up and running as early as the week of May 17.

“We are hoping in the next week or so; the primary care component has been set back by the fact that we are bringing in folks from out of state, which means licensing and credentialing in the state too. Massachusetts is notoriously slow for licensing so that has been a process, but we are really hopeful it will be ironed out by next week,” she said.

Ducar added that pediatric care would likely be starting during the week of May 17 even if the other services were not ready.

Along with primary care and mental health services, Ducar said one of the organization’s main pillars is to educate people about transgender health.

“In terms of education, we believe there are a lot of myths and rumors out there and we really believe there are a lot of educational opportunities. Some of this will be through eventually taking students, taking volunteers, doing education with academic centers, other hospitals, and community education,” she said.

Ducar added that one of the other pillars of Transhealth Northampton is advocacy.

“In terms of advocacy, we are already a part of different advocacy landscapes. We are a part of the LGBTQI Federal Policy Roundtable, which is very important to us for advancing policy goals on a national landscape. We are working with different government organizations to pass legislation and one of our goals is to conduct a discovery phase to understand the needs of the trans, gender-diverse, black and brown, indigenous, people of color community,” she said.

Ducar said she hopes Transhealth Northampton serves as an institution that proves trans rights are human rights.

“This is an opportunity to dig our heels in and create a brick-and-mortar institution that makes it clear that trans rights are human rights. I think we see a lot of this politicking with trans rights across the nation and this is a practical, meaningful response to that politicking. We are creating an organization that will stand the test of time and we are investing in gender-friendly care,” she said.

Anyone interested in receiving care from Transhealth Northampton can find more information online at transhealth.org.