5 years later, Philadelphia doctor credited with saving lives reflects on pandemic

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- At the corner of 21st and Lehigh sits a building that has become the heart of a community's health.

"We have pediatrics. We have geriatrics. We have internal medicine," said Dr. Ala Stanford of the Ala Stanford Center for Health Equity, which is adjacent to the Deliverance Evangelistic Church in North Philadelphia.

The health center was purposefully put there in a community that could otherwise go without it.

"(We are) establishing this center in one of the lowest life-expectancy communities in this nation," said Stanford.

She knows, though, that her health center wouldn't exist if it weren't for the COVID-19 pandemic.

"It would not have been here," she said.

It was March of 2020 when the pandemic was declared. In the first two months of that pandemic, Black residents had the highest death rates of all ethnic groups in the Mid-Atlantic region.

"The disparities were clear early when it came to African Americans," said Stanford.

Our 6abc data team found that April 2020 marked the first peak of weekly COVID-19 case rates in the Black community in the Mid-Atlantic region. It was nearly triple the rate of white residents. Still, African American communities weren't receiving the resources they needed. That's when Stanford, a pediatric surgeon, "knew" she had to do something.

"I reached out to city, state and federal officials to say, 'How can I help?'" she said.

Stanford also founded the COVID-19 Black Doctors Consortium. They went to communities with the highest transmission rates and death rates, providing education, testing and vaccines.

"What it acknowledged is that something was missing in our health care system that a Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium was even necessary," said Stanford, noting that their patients were often rejected when they went to other places for care.

"We were accepting people being turned away from other places. The uninsured, the underinsured," she said.

Originally skipped over for a city contract, the Black Doctors Consortium stepped in when the city severed ties with the organization Philly Fighting Covid. Local leaders now credit Stanford with saving countless lives. Her advocacy catapulted her into the international spotlight.

"It was a lot, but I realized that every time I spoke, it was an opportunity to get the message out," she said.

Stanford details her journey in her book "Take Care of them Like My own: Faith, Fortitude, and a Surgeon's Fight for Health Justice." Stanford is now using the book as a textbook as she teaches future health care professionals.

"Everything she wants to do with the community and our patients, it is an absolute inspiration," said Daria Podell, who is a graduate student and training as a physician's assistant at the Dr. Ala Stanford Center for Health Equity.

Five years after the pandemic, Stanford, a difference-making doctor, continues to focus on care for all communities.

Last month, a second location of the Dr. Ala Stanford Center for Health Equity opened, offering people in the Holmsburg section of Northeast Philadelphia the type of quality care for which Stanford has advocated for all.

"They deserve expert, compassionate care," she said.