Q&A: This one-time heroin addict gives back as head of substance abuse program
Name: Vitka EisenAge: 57City: BerkeleyPosition: CEO, HealthRIGHT 360 J.: You have been involved for more than three decades with San Francisco’s Walden House, which serves people with substance abuse disorders. It merged with Haight Ashbury Free Clinics in 2011 to form HealthRIGHT 360. How did you end up leading the organization? Vitka Eisen: I initially came to […]
A New Kind of Health Center Is Coming to Mission District in S.F.
By Bill Bradley, Next City, May 3, 2017 Read on Next City’s website This article is the second in a series of profiles of impact development projects produced in partnership with guest editor Gregory Heller. Impact development is a term that describes real estate projects that serve a social purpose. This series explores how impact development projects are reshaping our […]
San Francisco gets serious about safe injection sites
By Joshua Sabatini, San Francisco Examiner, April 9, 2017 Read on the San Francisco Examiner’s website Sirens echo throughout Civic Center Plaza around 11 a.m. Friday. A young man has collapsed on the pavement after stepping out of a Jeep Cherokee parked in front of the Main Public Library, his face a gruesome shade of […]
Medicare for all: SF’s gift to the nation
By David Talbot, The San Francisco Chronicle, March 28, 2017 Read on the San Francisco Chronicle website Happy days are here again, for now. The Trumpcare fiasco last week produced many joyous results — like reviving the single-payer health care option, the choice of most enlightened countries in the world. Within hours of the Republican […]
Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic, as it was described in 1967
By David Pearlman, The San Francisco Chronicle, March 10, 2017 Read on the San Francisco Chronicle website When kids from all over the country flocked to San Francisco for the Summer of Love five decades ago, the Haight was a street bazaar for drugs. The only medical help for sick and badly stoned youngsters was […]
From the doctor to the DMV: Trans people rush to change IDs under Trump
By Marissa Ortega-Welch, KALW Local Public Radio, February 21, 2017 Read the article on KALW’s website Kris Gambardella rushed to update the “gender marker” on his driver’s license after Trump was elected. MARISSA ORTEGA-WELCH Kris Gambardella is visiting the doctor today in order to get a new driver’s license. Kris is 26 and does social […]
SF working on ambitious plan to eliminate hepatitis C
By Erin Allday, San Francisco Chronicle February 19, 2017 Read the article on the San Francisco Chronicle’s website Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle Dr. Andrew Desruisseau checks the eyes of Sonia Hernandez at Tenderloin Health Services in San Francisco. Hernandez is a hep\atitis C patient. San Francisco is trying to become the first city in the […]
VisionSF Spotlight: HealthRIGHT 360
By Eleni Gastis, San Francisco Chronicle, February 16, 2017 Read the article on the San Francisco Chronicle’s website Now, more than ever, HealthRight360 CEO Vitka Eisen is prepared to fight for the communities she serves. Anticipating the opening of a new five-story, 50,000 square-foot facility on Mission Street this fall, there is a lot for […]
Haight Ashbury’s Free Health Clinic: Middle-Aged And Still Groovy
By Laurie Udesky, from Kaiser Health News, January 22, 2017 Read the article on NPR’s website A large collage decorates a wall of one exam room at the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic in San Francisco, Calif. Dr. David Smith, founder of the clinic, says patients and staff call the mural the Psychedelic Wall of […]
HealthRIGHT 360 Statement on the Surgeon General’s Report: Facing Addiction in America
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 17, 2016 HealthRIGHT 360 Statement on the Surgeon General’s Report: Facing Addiction in America By Vitka Eisen, MSW, Ed.D, Chief Executive Officer SAN FRANCISCO — Today, HealthRIGHT 360, one of California’s largest community health care providers and addiction treatment pioneers, issued a statement in response to the Surgeon General’s groundbreaking report, Facing […]
Surgeon general’s addiction report calls for better integrated care
By Whitney McKnight, Frontline Medical News, November 22, 2016 Read the article on the Clinical Psychiatry News website Primary and emergency care providers must step up prevention efforts and the use of state-of-the-art medicine when treating patients with addiction, according to the first-ever U.S. Surgeon General’s report on alcohol, drugs, and health. In the report, “Facing […]
Trans patients get help from afar thanks to telemedicine
By Victoria Colliver, November 5, 2016 Read article on SF Chronicle site A young doctor from Delaware with a transgender patient wanted to know how his medications for bipolar disorder would affect his hormone therapy. The physician, still in a residency program, contacted TransLine, an e-consultation service that operates out of San Francisco’s Lyon-Martin Health Services, which serves women and […]
