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NRL News
Closing
Clinics or Corporate Reconstruction? If you saw in the news that Planned Parenthood was closing the clinics associated with its South Florida affiliate, you might have jumped for joy. Hopefully, some lives were saved, but don’t assume the clinics are gone for good. Indications are that this is simply a part of Planned Parenthood’s larger national corporate restructuring. According to the March 21, 2008, edition of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, representatives of the national PPFA office inspected facilities at the South Palm Beach and Broward Counties affiliate and found deficiencies in clinic conditions, medical operations, and policies and procedures. As a result, the federation asked the group to stop services at its Boca Raton, Oakland Park, Tamarac, Pembroke Pines, and Deerfield Beach centers until the problems are resolved. (The Palm Beach Post indicated that at least the clinic in Boca Raton was limiting services, but not actually closing it doors. New patients were being referred elsewhere, but existing patients could still come by and pick up test results.) Several local board members had been complaining to the national office for at least 16 months about the affiliate’s finances and medical documentation, the paper said. The group’s latest tax return indicated that the affiliate had been running a deficit in 2005, the Palm Beach Post reported (3/22/08). The Post also said the group’s former CEO had resigned and that several staff members had been laid off. Karen Ruffato, vice president of operations for PPFA, told the Miami Herald that suspending services is “very rare” but said that such steps were necessary to address “competency in management and fiscal discipline” at the clinics. The Herald notes a high level of public interest in the outcome, given that a substantial part of the affiliate’s budget comes from local governments, who contributed over half a million dollars for programs in 2005. As noted in the March issue of NRL News, there is a broad corporate move afoot at Planned Parenthood to close unprofitable clinics, eliminate ineffective managers, merge affiliates, and build new mega-clinics. (The article can be read online at www.nrlc.org/news/2008/NRL03/Mergers.html.) Interestingly enough, the Sun-Sentinel reports that Planned Parenthood’s national office and several local officials have been urging the South Palm Beach and Broward affiliate to merge with the affiliate from Orlando or from West Palm Beach. The latest fiasco gives them ample reason to force the move. Alex Arreaza, board chairman for the local affiliate, told the Palm Beach Post that “They don’t need to be nervous about us merging,” adding, “If we merge, it is to make it better, stronger, and more efficient.” |