Healthcare Under Crisis: Archiving Stories for Healthcare Justice
Amidst increasing restrictions on reproductive and gender-affirming care, Minnesota has been touted as a refuge for upholding access to these healthcare services. However, Minnesota’s “safe haven” label has not always matched the reality that patients experience. In the wake of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe V. Wade, with Human Rights Initiative grant support, a team at the UMN launched Healthcare Under Crisis. This community-oriented oral history project investigating the dynamics of Minnesota’s reproductive and gender-affirming healthcare landscape is all the more urgent in a post-Roe world. The team includes co-directors Professor Emily Winderman (CLA Communications), Adam Negri and Lauren Ruhrold, both graduate students in the History of Medicine program (CSE), as well as research associate Clare Frances Kennedy, a doctoral student in Communication Studies (CLA).
By conducting interviews with healthcare providers and community members, Healthcare Under Crisis forms an archival library of the healthcare movement, its current advocacy efforts, and future aspirations. The project has released the first volume of a zine sharing collections of stories and images of patients and allies, which is now available on their website, with a second volume on the way. Stories are also being added to the University’s Social Welfare History Archives. By sharing these stories, the project platforms and preserves the lived experiences of patients and the voices of healthcare justice in Minnesota.
The work has been collaborative between the team and the interviewees. Sharing personal stories carries an inherent risk. A personal story may bring danger to an interviewee if future legislation enacts punishment or barriers to procedures they experienced or championed. Healthcare Under Crisis prioritizes interviewees' wishes and consent when sharing stories, including anonymity.
A “Safe Haven”?
The project investigates Minnesota’s reputation as a “safe haven” for healthcare access. Interviewees have often challenged the “safe haven” label. One interviewee argued that calling Minnesota a “safe haven” can erase the collaborative labor of ensuring patients’ safety and healthcare justice. Instead, the term should be used in comparison to other states that do not have the same access to services as Minnesota does. Minnesota still has quite a way to go in delivering a true “safe haven.” As Negri notes, resources are still lacking, those in the field are overworked, and certain barriers still stand for patients.
For Winderman, Minnesota’s medical haven is a “horizon goal” that advocates continue to aspire towards. Healthcare Under Crisis contributes to the visibility of the experiences of patients and healthcare providers. Having stories told and managed by those with lived experience returns power to the storytellers, stories that will continue to inspire and inform healthcare advocacy work. “We hope that by contributing the stories to the University’s Social Welfare History Archives, we are at least putting a little bit of resistance against the impulse to dismantle structures,” Winderman says. “But that doesn’t mean the stories will go away.”
Healthcare Under Crisis shares a list of resources on their website, including clinics, advocacy organizations, and funding and travel support, along with links to other storytelling projects. For Kennedy and the team, this resource sharing is a way to give back and highlight the people foundational to this work. Being able to compare the variety of activists, projects, and stories beside each other and have them “in conversation” is further illuminating for the team to map out Minnesota’s healthcare landscape. By showcasing the variety of ways to be involved in reproductive and gender care justice, the project invites others to support the cause.
The Future of Healthcare Under Crisis
The project continues to build upon its oral history archive, with the second volume of its zine putting the spotlight on gender-affirming care and topics like out-of-state travel for care. The team is encouraged by similar initiatives across the country. “There are other storytelling projects like ours in other states,” Ruhrold notes. “We are not the only people doing this work.”
As the battle for healthcare justice continues, communities and individuals across the nation continue to be at risk. This is where Healthcare Under Crisis steps in. By providing a platform for passionate voices to share their story while preserving a library of patients’ lived experiences, Healthcare Under Crisis contributes to a vision of access to these essential healthcare services for all.
