The 2017 Pro Publica study on black maternal mortality along with the birthing stories of Serena Williams, Tori Bowie resonate personally with Tiffany. Despite being an avid global cyclist since 1998 including up until three weeks before giving birth; despite being exceptionally healthy with a healthy, well-positioned unborn child from conception until spontaneous labor, Tiffany was told she had to have an emergency c-section after being admitted to the hospital where she eventually gave birth. Many of us here are familiar with the statistics: regardless of income and education level, black women are three times more likely to die from childbirth-related complications than white women. It’s unsurprising that hospitals that serve predominantly black patients like SUNY Downstate have nearly double (62%) of major complications from hemorrhaging during birth compared to 34% at other New York Hospitals. Many questions remain unanswered about Tiffany's own birth experience, but that is a practice that she will not tolerate in the City Council.

Tiffany has first-hand experience with zip code-based health care disparities date back to her own childhood with a misdiagnosis at a well-known Brooklyn hospital until losing her grandmother decades later at that very same hospital, an event she wrote about in a 2021 New York Daily News op ed. She had previously worked as a Spanish and French interpreter subcontracted with the NYS Insurance Fund, which enabled her to have countless examples of witnessing medical apartheid firsthand. But avoidable health care and environmental problems span across the city. She pointed out the unprecedented surge in cancer and autoimmune diseases among Gen Xers and Millennials during the October Health and Environment Committee meeting following the resolution she wrote to halt the city’s toxic pesticide spraying. Not only is the city’s approach expensive, but it has been ineffective. In fact, West Nile cases have surged since NY and other states began spraying a quarter of a century ago.

Tiffany stands unequivocally with NYC Retirees. As a child, Tiffany and her family did not have health insurance until her mother became a proud union member and delegate in the mid 1990s, a role her mother continues to hold today. It is unacceptable for the city to change up the rules on workers who dedicated decades of their lives to keeping our city running; it is deplorable that our Council Member does not support city workers who doled out a portion of their monthly paycheck for a promised Medicare plan only to be thrown under the bus when their services are deemed no longer useful. What is most egregious is that our Council Member's tacit approval of the Mayor's fight against his own people comes at a time when those workers are less able to fight; living on a fixed income; and more likely to be simultaneously dealing with other health or life struggles.

Are there solutions?

• District 7 needs a comprehensive health and environment impact study on the city’s current pesticide and other chemical applications in public spaces, and it must be conducted by an objective third party. Tiffany will press for this within her first 100 days in office.

• The use of doulas, midwives and birthing centers are measures that have demonstrably proven to lead to better birth outcomes. The closure of birthing centers including the last birthing center in Manhattan was a mistake and one such that Tiffany will fight to reverse as your City Council Member.
  
  
  
• Many District 7 residents are elders who worked in sanitation and other city jobs. Tiffany will work to ensure that they are (1) aware of these city-initiated health insurance changes and (2) that our city employees get to keep the health coverage that they were promised all these years without the last-minute added expense.