Latinas struggle from Texas family-planning clinics cuts

By Hope Gillette, Saludify

Approximately 25 percent of state-funded family-planning clinics in Texas’s Lower Rio Grande Valley closed after funding was cut in 2011, leaving a number of women, particularly Latinas in low-income counties, without access to important breast cancer screenings, Pap smears and contraception.

“Latinas in Texas are forced to live with lumps in their breasts, pain in their uterus and undiagnosed and untreated cancer,” Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas, executive director of the Center for Reproductive Rights and National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, said at a news briefing in Austin.

And those changes were before current changes to reproductive health within the state this year which will further alienate women in counties on the southeastern border with Mexico, one of the poorest regions in the U.S., according to the report by the institute.

The latest cuts in Texas reproductive funding will allocate more monies to primary care facilities as opposed to family-planning clinics, a move which advocates of the budget allocations say still keeps opportunities open for Latinas and other low-income women who need to seek care.

But nine of the 32 family-planning clinics in the Lower Rio Grande Valley have already closed, and others have scaled back staff, hours, or raised prices to account for the lost funds. Though there are still 66 primary care facilities within a 30-mile radius of Brownsville, a border city at the state’s southeast tip, near the high-poverty areas most affected, experts feel Latinas will still lack access to care.

Primary care clinics not likely to improve Latina access to care

While legislators in Texas feel the primary care facilities should adequately compensate for the closure of family-planning clinics, many critics of the budget cuts fear Latinas will still lack the care they need for reproductive health. Not only are primary care facilities less convenient when it comes to appointments and scheduling, they are often more expensive than family-planning facilities and not located within easy access to Latino communities.

And it’s not just low-income areas of the state which are suffering. According to a report from the Texas Tribune, more than 70 family-planning clinics or programs have been lost across the state due to the budget cuts.  A third of those losses were abortion clinics, including the only two facilities located in the Lower Rio Grande Valley.

“Profound barriers to reproductive health, including cost, lack of transportation, immigration status and lack of accessible clinics, mean that Latinas in Texas are systemically barred from the care they need to live with health and dignity,” Jessica González-Rojas, executive director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, said in a statement. “These conditions are dangerous to the health of Latinas and immigrant women.”

While efforts are underway to boost reproductive support in Texas through primary care clinics, the efforts are slow-moving without family-planning facilities even though Texas’ 2014-15 budget includes a $100 million expansion of a primary care program to provide services for an additional 170,000 women; $71 million to operate the Texas Women’s Health Program; and $43 million to replace family planning grants that the federal government awarded to another organization to distribute.

One of the reasons Latinas in Texas continue to lose out despite increased primary care funding may be due to immigration status. A survey from the Center for Reproductive Rights and the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health found 39 percent of Latina women using the family-planning clinics self-reported they were undocumented immigrants.

That immigration status, combined with the high costs of primary care clinics can be enough for Latinas to delay important care.

“Half a year later I went back in case they had funding again, because my problem was getting worse and I was feeling sick. But it was the same story again, no funding,” Rosa, whose last name was not included, stated in the report. Six months later she was taken to the hospital for her symptoms, and doctors discovered she had a growing cyst that was affecting an ovary. “If I didn’t have surgery in time they were going to have to remove my entire uterus,” she said.

As the situation in Texas stands, Latinas will continue to suffer the consequences of budget cuts, despite new money allocations. Instead eliminating barriers to care which traditionally limit Latinas, the Texas budget changes only further limit important preventative care.

This article was originally published in Saludify.

Hope Gillette is an award winning author and novelist. She has been active in the veterinary industry for over 10 years, and her experience extends from exotic animal care to equine sports massage.