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Show Park City Community Clinic awaits decisions on funding by Nan Chalat The Park City Community Clinic isn't out of the woods yet. It is still waiting for a decision on a grant review application for federal Title 10 funds. Clinic Director Diana Maxell has made plans to appear in Denver for the review three times, and three times the review has been cancelled. Last weekend Maxell made the trip despite the latest cancellation can-cellation to try to determine whether Utah will receive any funds at all. The Park City Community Clinic (PCCC), which offers family planning services on a sliding fee scale, is currently trying to resolve an apparent Catch-22 situation. situa-tion. It is fairly complicated, Maxell warned. The problem prob-lem is that Utah receives its federal funding through a state agency. The state agency must abide by a recent Senate deicision which states that the clinic must require parental consent con-sent before offering family planning services to minors. But according to federal requirements for receiving Title 10 funds, the clinic is obliged to offer its services to anyone, regardless of age. The clinic has appealed to Federal District Court Judge David Winder for direction in the matter. Winder has decided to withhold with-hold judgement until he hears the results of the "Squeal Law" cases pending in New York and Washington, Washing-ton, D.C. (The "squeal law" requires family planning clinics to notify the parents within ten days after offering offer-ing services to a minor.) In turn, the federal agency which disperses the funds is waiting for Judge Winder's decision. In the meantime, Park City's Community Clinic has only enough funds to last one more month, and Salt Lake's Planned Parenthood has been without funding for a year, Maxell said. The federal fiscal year ends on September 30, and if those funds are not allocated before then, they will not be available at all. However, Maxell is opti mistic that the $62,000 requested re-quested by the PCCC will come through at the last minute. "I spoke with Jack McCarthy, who is the head of Region 8 (which includes six western states), and he assured me that Utah will have some funding," she said." The Park City clinic receives 80 percent of its operating expenses from these federal funds. The balance of the budget comes from patient fees and contributions. con-tributions. "The sad thing is that Planned Parenthood has been without funding for a year and they have been forced to go from a sliding fee scale to direct fees. They were providing 70 percent of the family planning care in the state, and now there are a lot of low income women who can't afford care at all," said Maxell. Maxell said that the clinic has asked Judge Winder for a preliminary injunction overriding Utah's Senate Bill 3, which requires parental paren-tal consent for treatment of minors. Since the bill went, into effect "our number of teen patients has dropped to nothing, the word is out. A year ago we were seeing more and more young people who really needed care," said Maxell. Despite the recent drop in requests for family planning care by minors, Summit County still has the highest induced abortion rate among teenagers in the state. Ac- cording to a news release issued this month by the Utah Department of Health,1 the Summit County rate of induced abortions among 15-17 year-olds is 13.3 per 1,000 annually, and 40.1 per; 1,000 among 18-19-year-olds. The state average for 18-19-year-olds is 18.7 per 1,000. "I don't think there is any question that it is crucial to provide family planning services ser-vices to prevent those pregnancies preg-nancies so they don't have to have abortions," said Maxell. Max-ell. ! "I think it is important for people to know that our; funds are in jeopardy but we; intend to stay in business." |