Women's Resource Clinic hosts anti-abortion speaker at gala
By Leslie Layton | Posted October 14, 2017
photo by Karen Laslo
More than 30 people gathered Friday outside Chico State’s Bell Memorial Union (BMU) to protest a Christian clinic — Women’s Resource Clinic — that was hosting an anti-abortion speaker at its annual gala.
Protesters, organized by a Mobilize Chico group called “Women on Reproductive Defense,” or “WORD,” said the Women’s Resource Clinic – not to be confused with Chico’s Women’s Health Specialists – is actually an anti-abortion organization that fails to provide “medical treatment” or “clinical care” and has intentionally confused the community about its purpose.
Inside the BMU, clinic staffers, preparing a banquet for some 350 donors or supporters, paused to comment on the protesters’ allegations. Brenda Dowdin, executive director, said the clinic is upfront and affiliated with a “non-denominational Christian ministry” and provides “medical information.”read more
Chef Thomas Rider prepares Strawberry Caprese Crostini with local strawberries.
He stood before a crowd of college students and alumni. On the table in front of him was a basket full of fresh fruits and vegetables displaying the colors of the rainbow. A grey Chico State Wildcats baseball cap sat on his head, and his black chef’s jacket was lined with red trim and embroidered with his name and title on the front.
It read: “Thomas Rider, Executive Chef.”
“I’m on the Food Network at Chico State,” he said, receiving chuckles from the audience.
On the rainy Thursday evening before spring break more than 60 students arrived at CSUC’s Bell Memorial Union to watch Rider—the executive chef for Associated Students—put on a show.read more
Kenyatta Aarif knew her high blood-pressure reading had startled two student nurses from Chico State. The nursing students were conducting a public-health outreach project in Oroville’s depressed Southside neighborhood, checking the blood pressure of the willing every Thursday during their fall semester.
She assured the students, stationed across the street from her small soul-food restaurant, that she’d refill her prescription for medication right away. “I scared those kids to death,” Aarif said of her first screening.
Aarif told herself something different — that she’d watch her diet more carefully. Then, a few weeks later, Aarif — who says she’s in her 40s — had two heart attacks and a stint inserted into a clogged artery at Enloe Medical Center in Chico.read more
Thomas Lewry and Scott Marshall had stopped for a blood-pressure check on a November Thursday at the Fire House Certified Farmer’s Market in Oroville’s Southside.
A pair of Chico State nursing students wrapped the cuff first around one man’s arm, then the other’s, and started pumping. Marshall talked about his health problems, and as he did, the screening began to seem increasingly inconsequential.
Marshall, 61, has stage 4 bone cancer. He’s homeless. Some days, he says, his legs hurt so badly, “I get to where I can’t walk, straighten up.” UC Davis Medical Center has apparently offered him treatment, but he says that would confine him — at heart he is still a fisherman — to a hospital bed for whatever time he has left. He said he keeps on rolling, even when his body is wracked with pain, much like the song Ol’ Man River.read more
Butte and other counties in rural Northern California’s 2nd Congressional District suffer from higher-than-average rates of chronic diseases that would respond to prevention, and if it was more available, routine care. Our counties pay in terms of both personal health and emergency-room/hospital-care costs.
State Research Analyst Mike Kassis pointed out that access to primary/preventive care depends in part on affordability (which usually means having health insurance.) The recently-published study Kassis worked on for the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development shows that $3.5 billion was spent on “preventable hospitalizations” in the state in 2008.read more
Reynaldo “Reny” Cabral was placed on probation Friday for an assault on his girlfriend that landed him in the Glenn County Jail – and ultimately, in a wheelchair.
Cabral, a 24-year-old Orland man who suffered a spinal-cord injury at the jail and is now a quadriplegic, was sentenced to four years probation and ordered to attend a class for batterers. The sentencing gave some closure to Cabral’s frightening 16-month journey in the Glenn County criminal-justice system.
“I’m very excited,” Cabral said late Friday. “It all turned out well and my family is relieved.”read more
