PLANNED PARENTHOOD BEGINS MEDICAL LOANS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, February 1, 1992                   TAG: 9202010181
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
PLANNED PARENTHOOD BEGINS MEDICAL LOANS
Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge has established a loan fund to help women pay for medical procedures the agency offers.
Executive Director Kathryn Haynie said the fund, established through a grant from the Public Welfare Foundation, will be available to women whose family income is as much as 200 percent of the federally established poverty level.
"Even with the low cost of our services, some women will put off using birth control or treating a sexually transmitted disease because their kids have the flu and need to be treated," Haynie said. "Women will often put off their own medical care in deference to their family's."
Through the $20,000 "Women in Need" revolving fund, women who would not normally be able to afford a service can make a down payment, borrow the balance of the fee from the fund, and pay off the loan over time at no interest.
A wide range of services can be financed through the fund, including the implanting of the five-year contraceptive Norplant, which can cost as much as $460. "If I needed Norplant - with a daughter in college and a mortgage to pay - it would be hard for me to come up with $460 cash," Haynie said.
In a recession, she said, there are increasing numbers of women who have difficulty coming up with the funds to pay for other procedures, as well, such as a colposcopic examination to evaluate an abnormal Pap smear.
The new program was created in response to a community need discovered in the ongoing assessment the agency makes of the "adequacy of and access to reproductive health-care services in the community," Haynie said.
Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge has work groups studying the need for prenatal care and abortion services in the communities served by its Roanoke, Charlottesville and New River Valley centers.
"There has been no determination" about whether there is a need for the affiliate to provide either prenatal care or abortions, Haynie said, because the studies have not been completed. And, she said, "sometimes being an advocate for the continuation or expansion of services elsewhere in the community" is the proper role for Planned Parenthood.
The Richmond affiliate of Planned Parenthood announced Wednesday that it intends to begin offering abortion services later this year based on concerns about not providing "continuity of care" without them.
David Nova of the Blue Ridge affiliate said "all Planned Parenthoods are concerned that the communities they serve have access to all forms of reproductive health care."
"If and when it becomes appropriate for Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge to make a similar decision [to Richmond's], we will," Nova said.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB