Monroe’s Planned Parenthood will close its doors

Published 10:53 pm Thursday, March 19, 2009

MONROE — The Monroe Planned Parenthood health center plans to close March 31, the victim of a turbulent economy.

“We never want to close a health center,” said Brian Cutler, spokesman for the Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest. “We have come up against some harsh economic realities.”

The Monroe center, one of four in Snohomish County, has operated at a loss for years, Cutler said. Busier Planned Parenthoods in Seattle and Tacoma made enough revenue in the past to make up the difference.

Times have simply gotten too tough.

The nonprofit family planning agency gives out birth control and emergency contraception. It also provides cervical and testicular cancer screenings, sexually transmitted disease treatment and abortions. Ninety-five percent of the services it provides are education and preventive services, such as PAP tests, cancer screening and birth control.

About 2,600 people used the clinic in 2007, the most recent numbers available, Cutler said. The majority of those are below or at the federal poverty line. Many patients have no other health care options available to them.

A lack of services in the east part of the county kept the doors open until now.

When Sea Mar, a community health center, opened in Monroe in October, Planned Parenthood officials felt they could close and still leave an alternative for patients.

“Had Sea Mar not opened, we would not have closed our health center in Monroe,” Cutler said.

Sea Mar does offer many of the same services as Planned Parenthood, said Gioconda Navas, the Sea Mar clinic manager in Monroe.

Sea Mar doesn’t specialize in reproductive health but clients who qualify can get birth control, pelvic exams and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. Sea Mar doesn’t offer abortion services in Monroe.

Sea Mar in Monroe serves about 90 patients a week. It probably can’t absorb all of Planned Parenthood’s patients, Navas said.

“There is plenty of need here,” she said. “With the economy and everyone being laid off there is going to be more need. I think it’s a shame the clinic is closing.”

Dr. Hans Dankers, a longtime family physician in Monroe, noticed the Planned Parenthood clinic was closing after he stopped by to pick up some contraception literature for his patients.

Planned Parenthood is the place people go to get birth control and exams when they can’t afford to go elsewhere, he said. It’s also the best place for accurate information about contraception — something that’s often lacking.

He’s concerned about the cost of unplanned pregnancies on the health care system and society.

“Whose going to provide services for teens?” he said.

The need for Planned Parenthood’s services has spiked by 35 percent in the Puget Sound region at the same time funding dropped, said Jennifer Allen, director of public policy for Planned Parenthood’s state office. Medicaid dropped thousands of patients statewide, and those patients continued to use Planned Parenthood. Without reimbursement from the federal program, Planned Parenthood lost $11 million a year. The state kicked in some but not all of the difference the past few years. The budget crisis puts even that money in jeopardy, Allen said.

The Monroe clinic opened on a permanent basis in 1996. Planned Parenthood has provided some limited services in the Monroe area since 1972. The Monroe Planned Parenthood’s three employees will be reassigned to other clinics.

There are no plans to close Planned Parenthood clinics in Everett, Marysville or Lynnwood.

Debra Smith: 425-339-3197, dsmith@heraldnet.com.