What’s Going on at Planned Parenthood?

I don’t know anything about the finances of Planned Parenthood, but this seems really really really bad….

Planned Parenthood is synonymous with the fight to preserve abortion rights. But it is also the health care provider ​of last resort to millions of​ the poorest Americans. Its clinics offer cancer screenings, birth control, annual gynecological exams and prenatal care, regardless of whether patients can afford to pay. The organization is unique in its reach, one of the few health care providers with a presence in all 50 states.

But a New York Times review of clinic documents and legal filings, as well as interviews with more than 50 current and former Planned Parenthood executives, consultants and medical staff members, found that some clinics are so short of cash that care has suffered. Many operate with aging equipment and poorly trained staff, as turnover has increased because of rock-bottom salaries. Patient counts have shrunk from a high of five million and 900 clinics in the 1990s to 2.1 million patients and 600 clinics today.

The lack of resources is startling: Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Planned Parenthood has enjoyed a fund-raising boom, with $498 million in donations that year. But little of it goes to the state affiliates to provide health care at clinics. Instead, under the national bylaws, the majority of the money is spent on the legal and political fight to maintain abortion rights.

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The case of the botched abortion in New York is one of scores of allegations reviewed by The Times that accuse Planned Parenthood of poor care.

In a case settled in California last year, a woman accused the organization of improperly implanting a birth control device in her arm and causing nerve damage.

A Nebraska clinician in 2022 did not realize that a woman was four months pregnant when she inserted an IUD. Several hours later, the patient was rushed to an emergency room and gave birth to a stillborn fetus.

For months last year at the North Central States affiliate, which oversees the Nebraska clinic, an understaffed nursing department did not upload sexually transmitted infection test results into charts, and patients wrongly believed that their results were negative when they did not hear back.

Many clinics are in dire need of upgrades and repairs. In Omaha last year, sewage from a backed-up toilet seeped into the abortion recovery room for two days, according to interviews with staff members and photographs and text messages shared with The Times. Employees shoved exam table pads under the bathroom door to block the leak. Patients vomited from the stench.

Employees at various affiliates said it was common to run out of over-the-counter pain medication and I.V. flushes. Salaries are so low that it is not unusual for staff members to qualify for Medicaid and federal food assistance.

Look, I don’t know what to do here, but it does seem that in the present moment, prioritizing providing the best possible healthcare is really important and PP becoming a bad version of a VA hospital is not exactly inspiring the troops to fight…