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Planned Parenthood staff and community speakers urge board to keep Inglewood Health Center open, citing prenatal and sexual-health services
Summary
Multiple health-care providers and community advocates told the Cook County Board that the Inglewood (Englewood) Planned Parenthood Health Center provides essential prenatal, STI and reproductive services and should remain open. Speakers outlined services, patient statistics and community outreach programs that would be disrupted by closure.
Speakers at the Cook County Board meeting on Feb. 5 urged elected officials to keep the Inglewood (Englewood) Planned Parenthood Health Center open, saying it provides prenatal care, sexually transmitted infection testing and other reproductive-health services to low-income residents in a neighborhood the speakers described as a prenatal-care desert.
Saeed Sanchez, representing Mujeres Latinas en Accion, said the Inglewood center is vital for reproductive and contraceptive care for working-class and immigrant community members who face barriers to care. "To close the center would position a huge additional barrier to access for our community members," Sanchez said.
Marilyn Winters, regional clinical director for Planned Parenthood, provided service statistics for the center: she said nearly 65% of Englewood Health patients qualify for Medicaid, and that last year the Englewood Health Center provided more than 6,000 STI tests and more than 1,500 birth-control visits. Winters added there are no other Title X providers in the neighborhood, which she said makes the Inglewood facility particularly important for accessible sexual-health services.
Leslie Moore Hicks, associate medical director and Bridges to Prenatal Care program director at Planned Parenthood of Illinois, described prenatal outreach and community programs including a community baby shower and partnerships with local organizations to provide wraparound supports for pregnant patients.
Melissa Perham, case manager for Planned Parenthood's Bridges to Prenatal Care, described the program's services — gestational dating ultrasounds, prenatal labs and exams, prenatal vitamins, genetic screening and navigation and postpartum follow-up — and said the program is aimed at reducing maternal-health disparities by providing early-intervention prenatal care in areas with limited options.
Speakers asked the board to consider the broader public-health implications of any closure and to support continued funding and partnerships that keep the center's services available to vulnerable residents.
