The El Paso Planned Parenthood closes its doors today, July 3, 2009, after 72 years, due to financial difficulties, according to Ms. Magazine.
Interim Executive Director Analinda Moreno said that this closure will affect six offices in El Paso that provide services to more than 12,000 women. A major concern, according to Moreno, is negotiating a "smooth transfer" for all the patients, with their consent.
The closing of this clinic comes one month after services for its HIV/AIDS patients was discontinued; this was also due to financial problems. Many of those patients have been referred to El Centro de Salud La Fe.
Other healtcare providers in the area such as Project Vida, Centro San Vicente, and Thomas Hospital Women's Health Center, are getting ready for an influx of new patients because of this this closing. A patient of Planned Parenthood El Paso said, in reference to the clinic, that people "seeking medical help that don't have the money to go to a doctor can just easily go here, now it's not going to happen...It's going to be harder because I don't even know of a good doctor that serves people with a low income."
I have always read and heard great things about Planned Parenthood, and it is very saddening that today it has been forced to shut its doors in El Paso.