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Healthcare without Planned Parenthood: Wisconsin and Texas point to dark future
Source: Reuters
Healthcare without Planned Parenthood: Wisconsin and Texas point to dark future
Molly Redden
Tuesday 17 January 2017 11.30 GMT
In the remote western plains of Texas, the Midland-Odessa region is separated from the nearest major city by hours of open road. So when the Planned Parenthood clinic in Midland closed down in late 2013 – a casualty of legislative cuts that targeted Planned Parenthood directly – it served as an isolated experiment in what happens when the government defunds the largest women’s healthcare provider around.
“I hate to say it, but I think an awful lot of women just opted to go without care,” said Mike Austin.
Austin is chief executive of Midland Community Healthcare Services (MCHS), a federally-funded network of providers that has emerged as the only major alternative to Planned Parenthood in the area. His clinic offers all of the same services the Midland Planned Parenthood once did, including contraception, cancer screenings and STI tests, to the same kind of patients, low-income women who rely on the public safety net for their healthcare.
In fact, just before the Planned Parenthood clinic shut down, the two providers made a plan to minimize the fallout. Planned Parenthood sent nearly 5,000 patient medical records – up to 1,000 belonging to active patients – directly to MCHS.
But to Austin’s dismay, only about 100 former Planned Parenthood patients ever showed up at his door.
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Molly Redden
Tuesday 17 January 2017 11.30 GMT
In the remote western plains of Texas, the Midland-Odessa region is separated from the nearest major city by hours of open road. So when the Planned Parenthood clinic in Midland closed down in late 2013 – a casualty of legislative cuts that targeted Planned Parenthood directly – it served as an isolated experiment in what happens when the government defunds the largest women’s healthcare provider around.
“I hate to say it, but I think an awful lot of women just opted to go without care,” said Mike Austin.
Austin is chief executive of Midland Community Healthcare Services (MCHS), a federally-funded network of providers that has emerged as the only major alternative to Planned Parenthood in the area. His clinic offers all of the same services the Midland Planned Parenthood once did, including contraception, cancer screenings and STI tests, to the same kind of patients, low-income women who rely on the public safety net for their healthcare.
In fact, just before the Planned Parenthood clinic shut down, the two providers made a plan to minimize the fallout. Planned Parenthood sent nearly 5,000 patient medical records – up to 1,000 belonging to active patients – directly to MCHS.
But to Austin’s dismay, only about 100 former Planned Parenthood patients ever showed up at his door.
[font size=1]-snip-[/font]
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/17/planned-parenthood-congress-wisconsin-texas