WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) – Patients travel from hundreds of miles away to access care at Planned Parenthood in Pittsburg. The health center opened two months ago to the curiosity of some residents and the disdain of others.
Logan Rink, a Pittsburg native, manages the southeast Kansas health center. She said it meets a need for the area.
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“Providing healthcare in a rural setting, in any form, is kind of a big deal to our communities, but providing reproductive healthcare in general is not something that’s really offered locally,” said Rink.
After the 2022 vote in Kansas on abortion – where the majority of Crawford County voters supported maintaining protections for abortion – Planned Parenthood Great Plains started exploring a health center option for the southeast part of the state. One goal was to address abortion access.
“We are in the middle of an abortion access crisis,” said Planned Parenthood Great Plains President and CEO Emily Wales. “Kansas is a provider of abortion care in a region that doesn‘t have enough providers.”
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Since opening on August 19, the health center has seen more than 300 patients. Seventy percent of those served come from Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. Many patients also come from Texas.
Wales said the health center also helps address the demand at its other centers in the Kansas City metro and Wichita areas while also seeing local patients.
“We are, at this point, the Planned Parenthood in the country with the highest percentage of out-of-state patients,” Wales said.
Wales said part of that is because of the restrictive laws in place, but because of those laws, it‘s having an impact on people’s ability to receive other health services.
“We have seen an increased number of patients coming to our state with fetal anomalies, difficult complications in their pregnancies, things that otherwise would have been able to receive care at home. Providers are anxious, they’re scared so they’re sending people to Kansas,” said Wales.
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There has been pushback from abortion-rights opponents, both people living in Pittsburg and out-of-state groups. However, those working at the health center said they have seen support from the community support.
“I think every single person has a different story, a different background,” said Dr. Lydia Prevost, M.D., Planned Parenthood Pittsburg Health Center Staff Physician. “Everyone has a reason they’re here. Just know you can trust your fellow community members, your fellow midwesterns to make decisions about their own bodies.”
Rink said, “I see that they’re people I have known my whole life. It’s people in my life that care about the services that Planned Parenthood offers and cares about having this access in our community.”
The health center said about a third of its visits, so far, are for testing and treatment of sexually transmitted infections (or STIs).
In addition to the locals who volunteer with the health center as patient advocates, sidewalk advocates direct patients to other services or options.
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