While New York City is generally pretty good with reproductive-health issues, and in particular using taxpayer funding for stuff like NYC Condoms without anybody throwing a clot about it, a new report by the Public Advocate raises some distressing questions about how much commitment the City really has to providing teens with access to Plan B and other reproductive-health services.
Only 15 of 38 teen health clinics operated by the New York City Health & Hospitals Corp. have emergency contraception available for same-day pickup, Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum said.
“Here is the reality: Emergency contraception prevents unintended pregnancies,” Gotbaum said in a statement containing figures collected by her office. “Women shouldn’t be forced to scramble in the case of an emergency. We have the tools to stop unplanned pregnancies before they occur.”
HHC disputes the results of the report, saying that emergency contraception is readily available at the city’s hospitals and at the adolescent health centers run by HHC (which provide reproductive health services, rather than the basic pediatric care the teen health centers provide). Which is all very well and good, but this raises a couple of questions, one asked by Tracy Clark-Flory here:
Here’s a question: Why shouldn’t a health clinic that caters to teens in any capacity provide basic reproductive care?
The second question is one I have: Why didn’t the Public Advocate disclose that?
Of course, more disturbing than the HHC teen clinic/adolescent health center thing is the fact that almost all of the sites run by the Department of Mental Health & Hygiene — which included STD clinics — were not providing EC in advance or allowing teens to pick up an extra package to have on hand. Only 27 percent of the DOMHH clinics were providing birth-control prescriptions, even for callers who stated they were adults.
That’s disturbing because DOMHH is required under a law passed in 2005 to provide EC to patients at all its facilities. HHC, which is a public-benefit corporation that provides health services to New York City residents, is not covered by the same law, but Mayor Bloomberg announced in 2005 that they would provide EC in advance and without a prescription for teenagers at its facilities.
The report gives some indications that the problem is one of implementation and staff training, particularly since many of the people answering the phone at the facilities had no idea what they were talking about. If that’s the case, work needs to be done to get that problem solved.
Ultimately, if the City can overcome the bureaucratic snafus and put EC in the hands of people who need it *when* they need it, it’s estimated that the City will save $260 million or so a year on either prenatal care or abortions for women with unplanned and unwanted pregnancies. And having female-controlled methods of contraception and pregnancy prevention are important, given recent studies that show that many adolescent boys will try to control their girlfriends by sabotaging their contraception and getting them pregnant.