The state health department's program called Protection Connection puts condoms in public places for affordable and accessible access. Now, some of those distributors say contract cancelations puts the program at risk. Watch Sarah Gray Barr's full story:
"I honestly think that HIV is probably going to shoot through the roof again. The STI HIV hepatitis prevention program run by the State Department of Health is canceling contracts for what it calls prevention materials. Those distributing the materials say the decision puts lives at risk. Whether you're looking at a teen that just walks into a grocery store and grabs a condom because they can't buy it, right, or somebody that's getting a haircut and they just grab a condom and that's the condom they use that night, right? So it's not always just income. Sometimes it's just pure access to the connection. Protection map lists dozens of distribution sites across the capital region. We visited many of them and found that some like the one behind me weren't even open to the public, but some like Mitchell and companies remained open and still distributing Vincent Mitchell and his family owned this barber shop. And when he was asked to join the program, he agreed quite a few people come in looking for him, you know, so every couple of months someone would come by and drop off boxes of condoms. Mitchell says the program really helped. I didn't realize how many people this thing was reaching until after I stopped getting them and everybody kept calling me for them. I'm like, wait a minute, maybe this was working."
💬 Discussion
The state health department's program called Protection Connection puts condoms in public places for affordable and accessible access. Now, some of those distributors say contract cancelations puts the program at risk. Watch Sarah Gray Barr's full story:
