Program thrives as partner pulls out

By Patrick Makiri
The Guardsman

The national Planned Parenthood office decided to pull out of its partnership with Planned Parenthood Golden Gate on Sept. 3, citing financial and administrative problems with the San Francisco-based office.

PPGG is now trying to balance its books and move forward under the new name Golden Gate Community Health. It will continue to provide services like birth control, cervical cancer screening, testing for sexually transmitted diseases and abortions without the support of Planned Parenthood.

“We believe the circumstances never warranted this action,” said Vincent Robinson, board member of GGCH. “(Planned Parenthood Federation of America) were sort of kicking us when we were having some challenges.”

But the pressure was not only from the top. In October 2008, a letter signed by 30 PPGG clinicians and physicians was sent to former CEO Dian Harrison and PPFA offices. It warned of financial mismanagement and administrative dysfunction, according to an article written by Katharine Mieszkowski for the non-profit, news organization The Bay Citizen.

Mieszkowski’s article also revealed that a former employee alerted the IRS, prompting an ongoing criminal investigation into the organization’s financial records, revealing losses of $2.8 million in the 2008-2009 fiscal year.

GGCH said these challenges will not disrupt the quality of care for their 55,000 patients, most of whom are low-income women, in San Francisco, Alameda, San Mateo, Marin and Sonoma counties.

Although PPGG seemed relatively healthy during much of former CEO Harrison’s tenure, the staff letter challenged the image of Harrison as a model representative of the Bay Area reproductive health community.

“Executive staff’s personal expenditures are excessive and are not aligned with the mandatory fiscal restrictions,” the staff letter reads. “Flagrant use of PPGG funds to pay for personal belongings, personal services and exorbitant technology products is seemingly unchallenged and not subject to the same financial scrutiny that clinic supplies and staff salaries are.”

In light of ongoing changes to Planned Parenthood’s presence in the Bay Area, Jill Tregor, a City College women’s studies instructor who worked for Planned Parenthood in the ‘90s, is concerned about whether GGCH will be a reliable resource for her students.

“So many of our students don’t have health insurance and rely on Planned Parenthood for birth control,” Tregor said.

For now Planned Parenthood’s Shasta Diablo office, located in Concord, is responsible for re-establishing the organization’s presence in San Francisco, Marin and Sonoma counties.

“One in four women have been to a Planned Parenthood somewhere in the country. It is a very well respected brand,” Mitzy Sales, the senior vice president of external affairs for Shasta Diablo office, said. “Our CEO has been a very good leader in terms of making sure we go where the need is the greatest.” added the administrator of the East Bay affiliate, which has actually grown during the recession, seeing 75,000 patients last year.

Patients of the PPGG who want to remain Planned Parenthood clients must pickup their records from GGCH and take them to the nearest Planned Parenthood office.

Family planning services are available at the Student Health Center located on the Ocean campus.

“We’re able to handle most (cases) here, so we don’t have to refer out very much, but when we do, we use a variety of places,” Paula Cahill, chair of the student health services department, said. “But I don’t have any reason that I would not refer patients to Golden Gate Community Health if they provided a service that we could not at this point. It seems like it is something more financial than medical.”