The following is a records of the podcast episode:
Rachael Robertson: Hey, listeners. Invite back to MedPod Today, the podcast series where MedPage Today press reporters share much deeper insight into the week’s greatest health care stories. I’m your host, Rachael Robertson.
Up this week we’re talking with Sophie Putka about her reporting on reproductive health care in New Mexico. I’ll share about a brand-new research study letter about movie representations of doctors. Kristina Fiore shares the most current updates on vaccine suggestions.
It’s been a little over a year given that the Supreme Court reversed Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health OrganizationTexas passed stringent restrictions right now, leaving clients there without any access to abortion care. New Mexico is the only state surrounding Texas that hasn’t likewise prohibited abortion. The states share a long border, and clients in some cases drive over 1,000 miles from Texas to New Mexico to get care. Planned Parenthood of New Mexico has in fact needed to cut down on its other services to maintain– however not just due to the fact that of Dobbs
Sophie Putka brings us a report from New Mexico. Sophie, can you begin by informing us a little about New Mexico’s history with reproductive care?
Sophie Putka: Sure. I talked with Adrienne Mansanares, the head of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, who stated that New Mexico has a long history of securing reproductive health care. More just recently, throughout the pandemic, they made abortion care a vital service and Texas did not. When the Supreme Court choice occurred, they doubled down and set aside federal government funds to develop a brand-new center throughout the border from El Paso to prepare for what they understood was coming from Texas.
Robertson: What occurred in New Mexico when Texas began to prohibit abortions?
Putka: Texas’ abortion prohibits begun even prior to the Supreme Court choice– all the method back in September of 2021 with an expense understood as SB8 that prohibited abortion after 6 weeks. After SB8, New Mexico began seeing clients from Texas flooding in. It got back at worse after the Dobbs choice in June of 2022 when Texas’ trigger restriction worked.
In the 10 months after, New Mexico saw more abortion clients from Texas alone than all the state’s abortion clients integrated in the 10 months prior to SB8. And this is all on top of a big pressure on health care employees and personnel scarcities from the pandemic.
Robertson: How has Planned Parenthood been managing reproductive care services in the area just recently?
Putka: Well, so those 3 things– SB8, Dobbsand the pandemic– have actually made it so Planned Parenthood in New Mexico has in fact needed to restrict its reproductive services over the last couple of months. Things like regular health check outs, STI [sexually transmitted infections] tests, check outs for discomfort or infection, contraception, and post-exposure prophylaxis for HIV.
Someplace in between 3 to 4 of the 5 Planned Parenthood places in the state have actually needed to cut down on reproductive health services in the current weeks and months. In the meantime, they’re focusing on abortion care. Even so, when I last talked to Planned Parenthood, just one place was able to provide procedural, or surgical, abortion. They simply do not have adequate clinicians to satisfy the requirement. And last time I examined, just a couple of the 5 were using medication abortion. Individuals can likewise get telehealth consultations for some things.
Planned Parenthood has actually been rerouting clients to New Mexico’s independent centers for those other services. The University of New Mexico’s center in addition to Whole Woman’s Health, which moved from Texas, b