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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 said. But when someone wants to access contraceptives or the morning-after pill, “they won’t give it to them.” This can delay patient care, and “for life-changing decisions, sexually transmitted infections and disease management, it’s terrible. People aren’t getting the care they need,” she said.

Arthur said that pregnant clients who might choose a crisis pregnancy centre because the local Options clinic is closed are “going to be misinformed about their options, going to be faced with biased, judgmental information about abortion through those services. They’re certainly not going to get [abortion] referrals.”

Dr. Laura Lewis, who heads Pregnancy Care Canada, a Christian network of crisis pregnancy centres, has denied members of her organization misinform clients. “Our goal is to ensure every woman has the space, information and support she needs to make her own pregnancy decision. We respect that it is her decision to make, not ours,” she told CTV News.

The flat provincial government funding for more than a decade has meant “our staff was not able to receive wage increases or raises in almost all that time,” according to Pasquino, who said nursing and other clinic workers are paid 25 to 40 per cent below the market rate.

Options for Sexual Health staff have been willing to earn such low wages because they care deeply about reproductive rights, said Pasquino, but her organization is determined to raise pay to a living-wage level.

Staffing costs are just part of the budget squeeze.

The “amazing and awesome” B.C. free contraceptives program involves administrative work, writing prescriptions and charting, noted Pasquino. Options for Sexual Health also provides a training setting for medical students and nurses, which creates more costs.

Pasquino says provincial governments have not been prioritizing sexual and reproductive health care. Funding for “women-based or gender-based care” programs seems to “disappear” when it comes time for provincial budgets, she added.

But that’s short-sighted, she argues, because many patients of Options clinics would otherwise seek medical attention in emergency departments, like testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections.

“This puts a huge burden in the already overstressed health-care system, and that’s really not the place for people to be receiving non-judgmental sexual reproductive health care,” said Pasquino, who is a registered nurse.

In an emailed statement, the Ministry of Health told The Tyee it is “grateful” for the important services Options for Sexual Health provides, and that the ministry and the Provincial Health Services Authority are continuing to work with Options and other partners “to find a pathway forward to support the delivery of care.”

The news that Options for Sexual Health is struggling to keep providing services coincides with similar news from WISH Drop-In Centre Society, which last week announced it would have to close its drop-in centre for two months in the new year.

Since 1985, WISH has worked to improve the health, safety and well-being of women involved in Vancouver’s street-based sex trade. It runs many services, including a drop-in centre, a shelter, an outreach service called the MAP Van and one-on-one support. Its website says its 73 staff and 110 volunteers provide 9,000 meals and 512 referrals and attend 30 overdoses per month, as well as seeing 800 women with the MAP Van.

The Tyee asked to speak with someone at WISH for more details about the closure or what this would mean to the women who rely on its services, but no one was made available by press time.

— This story was originally published by The Tyee

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