Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Employees of Thomason Women's Health Centers prepare pamphlets to be handed to people visiting closed Planned Parenthood offices. (Victor Calzada / El Paso Times)

EL PASO - Clinic outreach workers for Thomason Hospital Women's Health Center have been touring the area's closed Planned Parenthood offices in a large white RV since the longtime women's health service called it quits in El Paso on June 30.

The workers' hope is that women who don't know where to go for medical services will find a new home and not neglect their health. They hope the large vehicle helps grab patients' attention.

"We are going to different sites of Planned Parenthood to talk to patients and let them know we're here to help," said Lelia Onsurez, community health educator for Thomason Hospital Women's Health Centers. "They're not going to be left out in the cold."

Planned Parenthood provided family planning and primary care services and services for people living with AIDS and HIV.

Onsurez said her clinic hopes to pick up patients who went to Planned Parenthood for services such as Pap smears, pelvic and breast exams, mammogram referrals, pregnancy tests, and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.

She said the clinic accepts private insurance and Medicaid. It also receives state money to help care for patients. She said patients who do not qualify for state-funded care can still get financial assistance through Thomason Hospital.

"They're not going to let anyone go with out services, because Thomason Hospital has always had this idea that prevention is better than intervention and is less costly," Onsurez said. "They'd rather provide assistance for a Pap smear and the early detection of cancer than the intervention of advanced cancer and the complications of that."

The Women's Health Center has posted informational fliers on Planned Parenthood clinic windows for patients picking up medical records or trying to access services at the now-closed clinic.

Workers also hand out information to everyone who stops by while they're out in the clinic's mobile unit.

Onsurez said it will be difficult for Thomason Hospital Women's Health Center and other publicly funded clinics to easily absorb many Planned Parenthood clients without help.

"Our community is going to be hurting for a long time," she said. "We're hoping the state will step in and reallocate funds so the services can continue to be provided."

Private practices also are hoping to help fill the gap. At Primera Luz Women's Center, 10501 Gateway West, the closing of Planned Parenthood struck a nerve.

Several staff members, including medical director Dr. Oscar Quezada and administrator Norma Escapita, previously worked at the agency. Quezada was medical director there for about five years.

"We want to make sure we reach these women who think they're totally displaced and nobody will be able to understand them," Escapita said.

The clinic is reaching out to the agency's former patients, offering a discounted price and continuing their contraceptives. It also accepts Medicaid.

The closing "was disappointing, especially because Planned Parenthood definitely provided a very important service for a lot of our women and young girls," Escapita said.

The abrupt closing left many in the health-care community and the community at-large concerned for its more than 12,000 patients.

"Planned Parenthood was a very important health-care provider for this community, and I think it's a huge loss for El Paso," Betty Hoover, the agency's CEO until 2007, said the day it announced its closing.

"I hope the thousands of women who depend on Planned Parenthood for their reproductive and primary health care will be able to find a new provider."