Defunding efforts put lifesaving services at risk

By Stephanie Roberts

Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2017 | 2 a.m.

Ten years ago, I walked into my local Planned Parenthood as a volunteer, because I saw that there were not a lot of sources for people in my community for health care if they didn’t have money or insurance. Planned Parenthood was it.

Now, I’m the manager at a Planned Parenthood health center here in Las Vegas. I help provide birth control, cancer screenings, and STI testing and treatment to thousands of patients every year.

Yet since January, Sen. Dean Heller and Republican leadership in Congress have been trying to “defund” Planned Parenthood and repeal the Affordable Care Act. This would rip health care away from hundreds of thousands of Nevadans, and so many of the patients I see every day.

Never have I been so concerned about the future of my patients’ health care. As a health care provider in Las Vegas I could not stay silent about this.

Across Nevada over 16,000 people rely on Planned Parenthood. If Nevadans cannot come to us for care, I don’t know where they’ll go.

A couple years ago, a woman came to my health center, asking for birth control. This woman was in her 50s, so it seemed an unusual request, so we dug a little deeper to find out what was going on.

It turned out that she had just moved from Alaska to Las Vegas. Back in Alaska, she went to an urgent care center with heavy bleeding, and they prescribed her hormonal birth control to stop it.

It was a Band-Aid, but she said she couldn’t afford any further treatment. That was not good enough for us.

We enrolled her in a state cancer prevention program for women over 40, to cover the care that she needed. Our clinicians did a pap test and pelvic exam, and got her all the testing she needed.

Heartbreakingly, it turned out that she had cancer, so we made sure she was in good hands with expert specialists who would treat her affordably.

I don’t know what would have happened to that woman if she had gone anywhere else — honestly, I don’t think there is anywhere else she could have gone. I only wish she had come to us sooner.

It’s people like this patient who inspired me to step up.

In April, we hosted a patient roundtable to hear stories from our patients and underscore the devastating impact that blocking access to care at Planned Parenthood would have in our community. What was absolutely clear was that, without Planned Parenthood, these patients would have nowhere else to go for care.

That’s also why I’ve called Sen. Heller on a weekly basis. I wanted him to know the concerns and fears patients express when they visit us, not knowing if the health center doors will be open the next time they need us.

I will keep speaking out. And I will keep providing the best health care I can to as many Nevadans as I can. We need our elected officials to truly listen to us and represent us. They should be fighting just as hard to protect access to care as we fight every day to keep our doors open.

Our leaders in Washington have the responsibility to keep Americans safe and healthy. Without a doubt, cutting access to Planned Parenthood will put lives at risk. Our leaders must reject attempts to cut off millions from their trusted, irreplaceable health care provider and access to lifesaving preventive care.

I will not sit silently while politicians like Sen. Heller attempt to take our health care away.