MetroHealth, LGBT Community Center Partner For Health Clinic

The LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland will provide health care starting Tuesday. MetroHealth will operate the clinic as part of its Pride Network, which operates locations in Brecksville, Cleveland Heights, and other cities.

Anyone can use the clinic, or any of the services in the LGBT Center on Detroit Road in Gordon Square. The new clinic will provide services based on the LGBT community’s needs, including hormone therapy for transgender people and HIV prevention.

The specialized clinic is important, said the center’s executive director Phyllis Harris, because if a doctor does not understand the LGBT community, people could be deterred from seeking health care.

“It acts as a barrier if they’re going to try to access medical care and the medical professionals don’t have knowledge or familiarity or compassion toward anyone who is anything other than heterosexual in their presentation or their sexual orientation,” Harris said.

The clinic will also offer smoking cessation. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says people who identify as lesbian, gay and bisexual have higher rates of smoking than the general population.

The Pride Clinic in the LGBT Community Center will be open on Tuesday afternoons.