Twenty-five of B.C.’s sexual health clinics will close unless they get a boost in funding by April 1, warns Options for Sexual Health, a major non-profit clinic operator.
The clinics, which receive most of their funding from the province, provide sexual and reproductive health care, including STI testing, cervical screening, birth control and more.
“Sexual health is essential, it’s a fundamental need,” said Tiffany Melius, the executive director of Options.
The organization operates clinics across the province, including in Metro Vancouver, Kelowna and Nanaimo. It also offers care in more remote places, including several communities along Highway 16 between Prince Rupert and Prince George, and as far north as Fort Nelson.
Melius said their work in farther flung areas is especially important, because some of those communities don’t have walk-in clinics and not all residents have a family doctor.
“In some communities, we have been the only sexual reproductive health provider,” she said.
“So either they won’t access services or they will end up in an ER, or they will have to travel hundreds of kilometres to get to the nearest service.”
Competitive pay
Melius said provincial funding for the non-profit organization since 2011 has not kept up with inflation and the cost of living. As a result, Options can’t afford to pay nurses competitive salaries.
“Our current nurses are working at below market wage … and we are unable to recruit new folks coming in because we’re so far below what the market would pay for nurses,” Melius said.
Options has 30 of its own clinics that it manages and staffs directly, 25 of which are under threat of closure. It has another 22 clinics that it operates in partnership with other organizations. Taken together, the non-profit says it provides care to more than 14,000 people annually.
The organization says it needs an additional $1.5 million from the province in order to keep its clinics open, but has told the province it’s also open to $800,000 in “bridge funding” — which would allow half of its clinics to remain open — as long as it comes with a commitment to sustainable future funding increases.
Melius said the organization is giving the province until Jan. 31 to give them an answer about funding so that it can wind down its clinics and notify patients in an appropriate manner, if needed.
She is hopeful it will come through, and said that, overall, the NDP government has been “very supportive” of their work.
However, Melius said it’s important that the province doesn’t succumb to influence from other parts of the country or the United States, when it comes to restricting sexual health care.
“We as a province really need to stand strong on what we believe in and make sure that instead of weakening sexual health services … that we strengthen our sexual health services so we are able to resist some of those other influences,” she said.
CBC News reached out to the Ministry of Health but did not hear back before deadline.
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