Planned Parenthood closes Louisiana clinics after 40 years due to financial and political pressure

Red stick, the. – Planned Parenthood closed its two clinics in Louisiana on Tuesday for what the organization said that the financial and political challenges that made the functioning of the state are no longer possible after more than 40 years.

The closures mean that Louisiana is the most populous of four states without locations Planned Parenthood.

The release highlights Planned Parenthood’s pressures, while warning wider closings on a national scale in the face of Medicaid financing reductions in the tax on tax and expenditure by President Donald Trump. The organization also interrupts the work of advocacy in Louisiana, where the Republican leaders of the State applauded the closures.

The closures were “not the result of a lack of need”, but rather the outcome of “incessant political assaults which made us impossible to continue to function in a lasting way in Louisiana,” said Melaney Linton, president and chief executive officer of the coast of parenting Gulf Planned.

Supporters said the closures would have a harmful impact on Louisiana, where Planned Parenthood has never been authorized to carry out abortions in the state, but provided other medical care services to almost 11,000 patients last year in its Baton Rouge and New Orleans clinics.

Defenders and health professionals fear that the departure of the organization exacerbates more artistic health care in a state than data from the disease control and prevention centers already show one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country. In addition, a March report of the office of the Louisiana legislative auditor noted that the important deserts of the shortage of Ob-Gyn and state health care.

The Trump expenses and taxes plan asks the federal government to end Medicaid payments for a year to certain abortion suppliers. While the organization seeks to restore its financing by the courts, Planned Parenthood officials warned that around a third of around 600 clinics could be forced to close.

Earlier this year, five clinics in California and eight in Iowa and Minnesota closed their doors. Last week, the affiliate of Wisconsin announced that he would stop offering abortion and the affiliate of Arizona said that he would stop the services financed by Medicaid.

Louisiana joins Wyoming, Northern Dakota and Mississippi as states where the organization is absent.

“It’s a victory for babies, a victory for mothers and a victory for life!” The Republican Governor of Louisiana Jeff Landry published on Tuesday on social networks.

Planned Parenthood provides a wide range of services, including cancer screening and tests and the processing of sexually transmitted infections. The federal money from Medicaid did not already pay abortion, but the affiliates counted on Medicaid to stay afloat.

In Louisiana, a state with one of the country’s highest poverty rates, 60% of patients from Planned Parenthood clinics used Medicaid. Last year, Louisiana clinics provided nearly 30,000 tests for sexually transmitted infections, 14,400 visits to the contractual, 1,800 cancer screening and 655 ultrasounds.

Almost a decade ago, Jordyn Martin said that she turned to Planned Parenthood when she could not afford medical services elsewhere. During his stay at the clinic, a doctor offered Martin a free HIV test. A week later, it was diagnosed with the virus.

“Planned Parenthood saved my life for me,” said Martin, who continued to volunteer for the organization.

Apart from the New Orleans Planned Parenthood Clinic Tuesday, several people gathered and brought notes of thanks to the organization which spent four decades in Louisiana. Inside the building, until closing, the staff worked to connect patients with alternative health care providers.

From Wednesday, calls to Planned Parenthood numbers in Louisiana will be transferred to the location closest to Texas or Arkansas.

Michelle Erenberg, the head of a group of abortion based on New Orleans named Lift, said that people have contacted her to find new clinics. She said it was important to connect people with providers, but concerns about the tension he will put on clinics that are already in the short term.

“That patients will be able to obtain meetings quickly or access to all the services provided by Planned Parenthood, is unknown at this stage,” she said.