How Circle the City provides health care to unhoused expecting moms in Phoenix

Circle the City provides health care to Phoenix’s homeless population. And some of those patients are also pregnant.

Pregnancy can be difficult in the best of circumstances. For those who are unhoused, it can be a struggle just to get basic prenatal care.

"We're routinely giving out prenatal vitamins and trying to at least get some basic bloodwork and do some infectious disease screening," explains Dr. Jack Palmer is the outreach and street medicine medical director at Circle the City.

"The things that we can do, we try to offer as much as possible," Palmer added.

Palmer says Circle the City does not have obstetricians, however they try to connect those patients to housing or shelter that supports women who are pregnant.

Sometimes these patients are also struggling with addictions.

"I offer medications for opiate use disorder for a lot of our patients, including pregnant patients, if they're interested in that. We're working on training our staff to be comfortable doing those things as well, too," Palmer said.

Palmer says they are able to use buprenorphine for this population.