Temperance Taylor had initially planned to launch her startup, Lotus Noire Health, in March of 2020. The vision was to provide sexual health care via telemedicine to communities of color and LGBTQ+ folks — those who had the most difficulty accessing care due to time, geography or poor treatment in the past.
Then, Covid-19 hit. The pandemic effectively put Lotus Noire on hold as Taylor turned her attention elsewhere, most notably setting up and running a Covid-19 testing clinic at the Rhode Island School of Design. In late summer, Taylor pivoted Lotus Noire to broaden its mission: She launched the company in August 2020 as a primary care provider after prospective patients repeatedly asked her if she would offer that service.
"There is a severe lack of primary care providers of color here," Taylor said. "One of the reasons for health disparities between Black and Brown people and white counterparts is [we need doctors who] understand our culture and where we're coming from. I decided to go ahead and open up for primary care. Now, I'm a fully functioning primary care telehealth that just happens to have an office."
This winter, Taylor is broadening Lotus Noire's mission again to fight the pandemic head on.
The startup is partnering with the Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH) to provide a "one-stop shop" Covid-19 clinic: testing, treatment, education and, soon, vaccinations. Lotus Noire set up a pop-up clinic at St. Peter’s & St. Andrew’s Episcopal church in Providence in early February and tested about 20 patients within its first four weeks of existence. Taylor, who runs and staffs the site herself with help from RIDOH, also gives out N95 masks, hand sanitizer and other pandemic necessities.
She expects that as more people learn about the site, more people will come: "They just need to know that you’re going to be there," she said.
Taylor is at the church every Wednesday from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. and Saturday from noon to 1:30 p.m., the same time St. Peter's & St. Andrew's runs its food bank distribution. Lotus Noire remains a full-service primary care operation, maintaining telehealth hours from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. each Saturday.
Lotus Noire and RIDOH are also coordinating to host vaccine clinics at the YMCA in Pawtucket, and Taylor is seeking to set up satellite sites in Providence's Elmwood neighborhood and elsewhere.
Taylor has teamed up with Geoffrey Capraro, an associate professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine at Brown University, to propose a grant that would enable Lotus Noire to bring on volunteers from the Brown School of Medicine and Hasbro to educate and vaccinate people in underserved neighborhoods. They will learn about the fate of the program at the end of the month.
Taylor said she reached out to Capraro after initial disappointment in Rhode Island's vaccine rollout. Seventy percent of Rhode Islanders who have received their first dose are white, even though communities of color have suffered disproportionately at the hands of the pandemic.
"There are communities of color here that do not have a testing site within walking distance," Taylor said. "That was kind of ridiculous to me. I just couldn't believe it. With all the statistics showing that Black and Brown communities are hit harder and more people are dying, I thought the vaccine effort would be more concentrated in our communities."
Taylor expects that Lotus Noire will be able to begin administering the Covid-19 vaccines at the end of March. The clinic's vaccines will be stored by Asthenis, a Providence-based community pharmacy that has partnered with RIDOH on the state's Covid-19 response for several months.
Asthenis, which is run by Eugenio Fernandez, is a graduate of DESIGNxRI's 2020 PVD Design Catalyst program and was a finalist in the Get Started RI competition the same year.
"Eugenio has been really beautiful to work with. He understands what it’s like to be a small business and to need help," Taylor said. "I'm hoping to work on him on other initiatives in the future as well."
