Ebony Hughes

1948–

Women's health educator, healthcare advocate, entrepreneur, registered nurse

Ebony Hughes dedicated herself to women's health education and community health advocacy. She co-founded two obstetrical home health agencies and was honored in 2004 with the American Heart Association's Sister-to-Sister Award for her work in African-American women's healthcare. Hughes focused on educating staff and patients about their rights and responsibilities, patient education, and navigating the health care system. As a conference speaker and educator, she shared her expertise in community health, teaching strategies, and the skills communities need to ensure greater access to quality healthcare. Hughes's concern for the well-being of others extended worldwide. As a childbirth and CPR instructor, Hughes provided training to medical staff and community workers in Russia, Hungary, Ukraine, and Albania.

Hughes was born on February 8, 1948, in the Pittsburgh Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she grew up with a twin brother, James, and a sister. The Hughes children saw many rough times from an early age after their parents divorced. It was a struggle for their mother, Ruth, as she raised her kids alone. Despite hard times, Hughes remained focused on her future and finished high school in 1966. She entered the University of Pittsburgh that year to study psychology and stayed one year. Hughes had grander ideas about the role she could play in helping to make the world a better place. In 1967 she became a VISTA Volunteer.

VISTA (Volunteers In Service To America) is a national program of citizens who spend a year working at a community organization helping to solve the problems of poverty. Hughes was assigned to work at Thresholds, a community day care center on the North side of Chicago that worked with adults with mental health issues. This was Hughes's first opportunity to work with such a diverse community of people, all facing common issues of health and poverty: American Indians, Blacks, and whites from the Appalachians all sought help at the centers. Hughes gained a wealth of on-the-job training. "We did it all," Hughes said in an interview with Contemporary Black Biography (CBB), "We did the painting; we got the furniture; we developed social programs that recruited patients from the state hospitals who were near discharge." As Hughes wrapped up her year with VISTA she realized how much she liked Chicago and valued the relationships she had developed during her stay. She also liked being on her own, but she also needed to focus on a career.

That year a chance meeting with the aunt of a young man Hughes was dating turned Hughes's interests towards nursing. She had never considered the field until the woman explained the benefits of such a career. "She told me that hospitals will always need nurses, and that I could go anywhere in the world," Hughes said. "And I had always wanted to travel. Three months after that conversation I was enrolled in the Cook County School of Nursing, in the RN program." While there Hughes and fellow nurses started a black student nurses association. Hughes served as the group's president during its second year. She graduated in 1972 and began work in the psychiatric unit of Cook County Hospital. "With 2,000 beds it was one of the largest hospitals in the country, and we saw everything," Hughes told CBB.

A few months later Hughes married Charles Howard. The couple soon moved to Atlanta, where they lived for several years. Hughes later returned to Pittsburgh after her separation from her husband in 1981, taking a position as charge nurse in labor and delivery at Magee-Womens Hospital. There she met another nurse with similar ambitions as her own. The two opened Options, the first for-profit maternal home health agency in the Pittsburgh area. Several years later she and a new partner founded a second agency, but at the time it was difficult for small agencies to compete with hospitals in the area. They too were now offering the same services to their patients, essentially cutting out the small providers. In the meantime Hughes continued to work at the hospital until she took an early retirement in 1995.

Her retirement ended after two months as she began work briefly as a charge nurse with Healthy Start, a new program targeted to women in the African-American community with high-risk pregnancies. The program operated six sites in areas that were high-risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and had a high rate of black infant mortality. The program offered women home and prenatal visits, birth control counseling, childbirth classes, and referrals to food banks.

The following year a doctor Hughes knew from her days at Magee-Womens urged her to apply for a new position with the hospital's ambulatory care department. The job involved perinatal (the time before and just after women give birth) outreach work in the high-risk, low-income areas of Braddock and Duquesne, outside Pittsburgh. Several doctors were starting a family practice there that would offer adult, pediatric, and prenatal care. "We counseled women and teens on birth control and safe sex, and provided them with prenatal care," Hughes said. The clinic also conducted couples counseling and health fairs. It was the work here that first led to Hughes's role as an advisor and board member for health and community organizations around Pittsburgh.

In 1996 Hughes received a job offer from the Womancare program at Magee-Womens International, a department of Magee-Womens Hospital. The program was partnering with medical providers in former Soviet Union countries and Hughes would be a good fit on the team. Hughes, excited about the opportunity, accepted the position. The hospital was setting up resource centers in these countries to teach women about basic women's health care. In addition, the fall of communism had revealed a severely antiquated health care system that lacked well-trained personnel and basic necessities. Medical personnel from the old Soviet bloc traveled to Magee-Womens to take classes in proper sterilization, infection control, and other training vital to proper patient care. "Those countries didn't even have disposable equipment to use," Hughes told CBB. "There was nothing for a pap smear. These are things that we in the United States take for granted."

Over the next decade Hughes spread her message, training health care providers and patients. As a childbirth expert she worked with groups to open health centers in Moscow, a badly needed resource for pregnant women and general women's health care. She was later invited back to give childbirth training in Minsk, Belarus. Hughes found the job and travel to be fascinating as she worked with the Romas (better known as the gypsies, although the term carries a negative connotation) in Gyor, Hungary, Afghan refugees in Moscow, and medical personnel in the Ukraine and Albania. On these trips Hughes introduced the concept of partner support during pregnancies, promoted the concepts of family health care centers and better communication between mothers and daughters.

At a Glance …

Born Ebony Hughes on February 8, 1948, in 'Pittsburgh, PA; married Charles Howard, 1972 (separated, 1981); children: Kesi, Ahmed. Education: Cook County School of Nursing, Chicago, IL, RN, 1972.

Career: VISTA Volunteers, Chicago, IL, community volunteer, 1967–68; Cook County Hospital, Chicago, IL, psychiatric nurse, 1972–78; Magee-Womens Hospital, Pittsburgh, PA, charge nurse, 1982–95; Healthy Start, Pittsburgh, PA, charge nurse, 1995; Magee-Womens Hospital, Braddock and Duquesne, PA, case manager, 1995–96; Magee-Womens Hospital, Pittsburgh, PA, community nurse educator, 1996–.

Memberships: American Heart Association. American Cancer Society.

Awards: Lamaze International, Lamaze International Award, 1998; National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, William H. Moore Award for Excellence, 2003; American Heart Association, African-American Heart Health Awareness Award, 2004.

Addresses: Office—Magee-Womens Hospital, 300 Halket St, Pittsburgh PA 15213-3108.

In the United States Hughes coordinated programs such as Families in Motion, a walking program de-signed to encourage families to exercise, and worked with the GIFTS program, a group providing incarcerated women with cervical and breast health education and screening. An admired colleague at Magee-Womens Hospital, Hughes continued to open doors and ease the way for women and health care professionals to learn about the things that keep women healthy.

Sources

On-line

"Ebony Hughes to Receive the 2004 Sister-to-Sister Award," Western Pennsylvania Hospital News, www.pghhospitalnews.com/archives/?page=1&ar-ticleID=146 (March 1, 2006).

"Lamaze International Awards," Lamaze International, www.lamaze.org/about/awardhistory.asp (March 3, 2006).

"Vista Web by Friends of VISTA," VISTA, www.friendsofvista.org (March 1, 2006).

Other

Additional information for this profile was obtained through an interview with Ebony Hughes on April 14, 2006.