Options for Sexual Health, a B.C.-based organization providing sexual and reproductive health care, faces closure unless the province increases funding. The organization warns of a potential gap in essential healthcare services if funding is not secured.
Options for Sexual Health says it will have to close most of its operations unless the province immediately increases funding. The organization offers sexual and reproductive health care, information and education from a feminist, pro-choice, sex-positive perspective, at 52 clinics across B.C. , including 30 directly managed locations, and provides essential care for up to 15,000 people annually, according to a press release about its financial hardships.
It has been a registered society since 1963. But for the last 12 years provincial funding for the organization has stayed about the same, and it is now at the point where it may have to close most of the clinics it directly manages — likely up to 25 of the 30, said Nicole Pasquino, a registered nurse and clinical policy director/practice support for Options for Sexual Health. Pasquino says Options has asked the provincial government for $800,000 in bridge funding to keep 50 per cent of its clinics open, and long-term sustained funding of $1.5 million to keep almost all the clinics open. Joyce Arthur, executive director of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, says that if Options does close clinics, it “is going to create a huge gap” while sending a bleak signal. “It means we can’t trust the NDP government to deliver for women, trans folk, sex workers and all the people that need this health care the most,” she said. Without the option to use the organization’s clinics, patients will be more likely to go to crisis pregnancy centres in their small community, Arthur predicts. Crisis pregnancy centres are Christian clinics that offer services to pregnant women but do not support abortion. They have been criticized for misrepresenting the clinics as neutral health-care providers. “I am very aware of communities where crisis pregnancy centres are now offering things like STI testing to folks to get them in the doors,” Pasquino sai
Funding Crisis Sexual Health Healthcare Clinic Closure B.C.
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