Family Planning Services mobile clinic will improve access, provide fallback

Family Planning Services of Lorain County is raising funds to buy a van to serve as its new mobile clinic in a bid to improve service delivery, but also to prepare for the possibility that federal funding dries up. Family Planning is a nonprofit clinic that provides a wide variety of reproductive health services at low cost or for free, depending on the ability of its clients to pay. Late last month, the organization launched a fundraiser seeking $140,000 to buy a specially retrofitted van to serve as a mobile clinic. Executive Director Tammy Bertrand said that the van will allow Family Planning to provide better access to its health care services throughout the county, especially in southern Lorain County, where it has historically been difficult to reach patients. But the van also serves a less obvious purpose: It provides a contingency plan if the organization loses the federal funding on which it relies. Bertrand said on Thursday that President Donald Trump froze the Title X funds that support community programs like hers when he took office. Though those funds were released by court order, she said the federal government continues to cut health care spending, which impacts both Family Planning's patients and the organization itself. Family Planning has been funded by federal money through Title X since 1970, under a law that was signed by President Richard Nixon. For the past 10 years, Bertrand said, the nonprofit has received about $380,000 in Title X funds, which it uses to provide a wide range of services including birth control, pregnancy tests, cancer screening, sexually transmitted disease testing, HIV prevention and postpartum care. This year, though, Bertrand said Family Planning was informed that if it did receive funding, its budget would be cut by about $65,000. Her biggest fear, Bertrand said, is that if funding is cut more substantially or even cut off entirely, Family Planning will only be able to afford to remain in its permanent clinic at 602 Leona St. for a year to 18 months. "We get wonderful support in our community, from the (Lorain County) Community Foundation, from the Nord Family Foundation, Elyria Charities, the churches," Bertrand said. "People are wonderful in this community, but nobody has that kind of money to replace our funding. So, we just have to broaden our horizons and find other ways to help people, in case it comes down to where we can't have the office anymore." Working out of the mobile clinic would allow Family Planning to continue serving most of its patients even without a permanent home, Bertrand said. The nonprofit directly treats about 4,000 patients annually, and provides some sort of service to 20,000 Lorain County residents per year. In addition to cuts to Title X itself, Bertrand said the federal government is pushing more people to need the type of low-cost care Family Planning offers by cutting programs like Medicaid. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed by Congress in early July, outlines $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts over the next 10 years. This leads to more people seeking care from Family Planning, while the clinic is left with less money to treat them. "Having a healthy community benefits everybody," Bertrand said. "And, unfortunately, the poor are just being pushed down even further by the current government. It makes me sick. I have never seen so much nastiness in my life." If the worst is avoided and Family Planning maintains its federal funding with minimal cuts, the mobile clinic would still be useful to provide expanded services in the county. "We do go out to Oberlin on a regular basis, to Oberlin Community Services or Oberlin College, but people in Wellington, Grafton, the townships, who have mobility issues, they can't even get there," Bertrand said. "This would allow us to go to areas we haven't been. We could partner with the library in Wellington and let people know we will be there on this day next month." As of 7 p.m. on Thursday, Family Planning had raised $45,457 for the purchase of the van, roughly 32 percent of its $140,000 goal. The majority of the money the nonprofit has collected so far came in the form of a $25,000 donation from Elyria Charities. The fundraiser drive can be found by visiting familyplanningservices.org/ and clicking "Donate" on the far right of the page. Contact Owen MacMillan at (440) 329-7123 or omacmillan@chroniclet.com.