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Vanessa Shields-Haas is a family nurse practitioner for Maine Family Planning in midcoast Maine. She has worked in sexual and reproductive healthcare for more than 15 years.
As a nurse practitioner, I care for members of the community from middle and high school age to people in their late 70s. I often care for multiple generations of the same family, from teens seeking contraceptive care or young adults facing fertility challenges, to their parents seeking screenings for breast, cervical, and colon cancer, and grandparents requesting treatment for problematic perimenopausal and menopausal symptoms.
The continuation of this care, however, is at risk.
Right now, federal funding for family planning is in the crosshairs and Maine Family Planning’s federal family planning funds have been frozen. We need Maine legislators to continue to invest in the health needs of Mainers by funding LD 143, “An Act to Improve Women’s Health and Economic Security by Funding Family Planning Services.” The legislation, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Teresa Pierce and co-sponsored by Democratic leadership, would provide $6.18 million to Maine’s critical family planning care network.
After a decade of insufficient funding, this investment is sorely needed to weather the impending political storm forming in Washington, D.C. It will ensure we are able to keep our clinic doors open at our 19 clinics across our largely rural state, where we serve nearly 30,000 patients annually.
My colleagues and I meet patients where they are, listening to their concerns and focusing on what they identify as their priorities for health and wellness. At Maine Family Planning, we see people with private and public insurance, as well as those without insurance using a sliding fee scale, providing sexual and reproductive healthcare and, at select sites, primary care. We provide patients who are uninsured and underinsured with applications for medical coverage for cervical and breast cancer screenings, as well as funding for colposcopies — cervical biopsies that detect cancer — that they otherwise could not afford.
The care we provide goes beyond sexual and reproductive health. In addition to contraceptive care, yearly wellness exams, menopause and perimenopause management, vasectomy, abortion care and STI screening and treatment, our primary care providers offer the diagnosis, treatment, and management of chronic disease such as diabetes and COPD. We also offer mental health services, acute care, WIC nutrition care, vouchers for healthy foods, and more.
With significant economic and geographic barriers to health care for Mainers, the ability for patients to access quality, patient-centered, affordable, and comprehensive health services at our clinics is critically important. Patients utilize Maine Family Planning services for issues that range from treating a urinary tract infection to managing a miscarriage. This reduces the burden on our emergency room departments and helps community members avoid paying exorbitant urgent care costs.
All Mainers deserve continued access to high-quality family planning services and primary care. Often, we are the only health care provider our patients see in a year. In fact, 70 percent of our patients qualify for free or reduced-cost care. We are their health care safety net.
Our family planning network is extremely strong, hardworking and resilient, just like Mainers themselves. As your health providers, we find ways to make it work, to innovate and to do more with less. However, the mix of a flatline in funding and rising costs makes the future of this vital care uncertain. I do applaud state legislators for passing LD 143 in the Maine House and Senate and urge them to finish the job by adequately funding the family planning bill to ensure patients can have continued care.
If Maine Family Planning has had the honor of caring for you or your family, or if you value the care that we provide every day to our local communities, reach out to your state legislators. Tell them to pass LD 143.
