Memphis PP fights for program they would operate at a loss?? Why??

 What should have been a cut and dry situation never is that way when Planned Parenthood is involved. As the article noted this mess all started when Yvonne Madlock Director of Shelby County (Memphis)Health Dept. indicated she would not accept all of the Title X monies for family planning services because of capacity issues and insisted she would outsource a portion of it. All other 94 counties in TN provide these services through the health dept. 

Madlock temporized, advising the state Health Department that the Shelby County Health Department was not equipped to provide a full level of services on its own and would have to sub-contract or “partner” with one or more local agencies if it was to administer the entire local package of $1,345,000 in Title X funding. (The portion of the grant being out-sourced is $397,900.)

Previously all of this money was automatically given to Planned Parenthood. This time a Request for Proposal (RFP) was used after pressure from TN citizens came into play. Sounds logical doesn't it. Isn't this Standard Operation Procedure for businesses. Madlock admitted that all 3 bidders met basic standards but based on scores on service related criteria, the recommended provider was Christ Community Health Services.

A six-person panel of officials from the Health Department and county government recommended approval of the bid from Christ Community on the basis of the Center’s higher cumulative score on a checklist of previously established service-related criteria. According to Yvonne Madlock, Health Department director, the aggregate scores were: Christ Community Center, 95.33; Planned Parenthood, 88.88; Memphis Health Center, 84.54.

Over and done and on with business, right?  We want the citizens to have the benefit of the best provider. No....Barry Chase CEO of Planned Parenthood came to whine and complain that they did not know what they were doing when they scored the bidders and PP should win what they acknowledge is a "loss leader."

 Commissioner Heidi Shafer, who chairs the commission’s Hospital and Health Committee, noted pointedly during Wednesday’s discussion that all of the agencies that had bid for the Title X contract would necessarily be operating at a loss.

So Barry Chase being a good CEO is fighting tooth and nail over a contract that is acknowledged to be operated at a loss. Why would he do that? Because $$ is fungible and as former directors of Planned Parenthood Abby Johnson has told us that PP needs tax payers $$ to survive and increase foot traffic for the profitable end of their business....abortion. Listen to her say.....they can't survive without our tax dollars.


Photo: Memphis Flyer

TN: Shelby Co. finally awards Title X money to private agency....not PP ...last of the TN counties....

Did Shelby County and Yvonne Madlock just blink??? Commercial Appeal writes 

[Shelby] County government leaders have decided not to contract with the local Planned Parenthood organization to provide family planning services for low-income people. Instead, Christ Community Health Services has been chosen for the $397,900 contract, Shelby County Health Department director Yvonne Madlock confirmed Tuesday.

The contract must still be approved by the County Commission. Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell hopes to have it before that board by the end of September.

This is the Title X monies from the federal govt. for family planning services. You may recall that previous to this announcement, Shelby County was the only hold out with Madlock  stating she did not have the capacity to provide these services and would outsource it  not ruling out PP who routinely got this $$ in the past.. She acknowledged the controversy generated around this but the mayor insists that the decision was not politics. 

PP does not have immediate comment.  Their Facebook is mum on this as well and they are concentrating on repairing their brand and having friendlies express their indignation via comments insinuating that Memphis will not be served with this new arrangement. However as one commenter states:

A Moment of Truth writes
CCHS has 7 clinics in Memphis all in underserved parts of Memphis. This will make these much needed services much more accessible to the residents that desperately need them. This decision is a win/win for our city and its residents.

They are also focusing on the $75 K they got funneled to them Shelby County Health Dept. to do STD  testing . Shelby county was awarded the grant by  CDC because it  ranked fifteenth of all counties in the U.S. for symptomatic syphilis. Shelby County has the highest number of newly-diagnosed syphilis cases in Tennessee, and the infection rate for all stages of syphilis is five times higher in Shelby County than in the U.S. overall. Of course, PP mocks abstinence education but their past efforts at sex ed and  family planning certainly cannot be declared successful with the STD and teen pregnancy rate garnering national attention.

PP free for TN...sounds like a good slogan for us.

TN:Shelby Co. Health Dir. shouldn't get to choose her assignments

When the  belt tightening TN lawmakers  voted to reduce the budget for the infant mortality reduction program that begin in 2004  by " cutting the program's $4.6 million budget in half for the fiscal year and  then eliminating it entirely the following year".....Shelby County Health Director, Yvonne Madlock,  did not hide her strong displeasure. 

Later when discussing the distribution of family planning monies, she responded to a question posed by Senator Campfield  who wanted the funds to be administered by her dept.  instead of Planned Parenthood .   He asked if the Health Dept. had a legal obligation  to provide these services. Ms. Madlock replied.....

" Yes, it would be legal for this health department not to provide family planning services,"
"But our mandate is also a mandate to protect the health of the community and protect the least of those in our community," Madlock said, before playing the city's health trump card: infant mortality rates that best those of many developing nations.
"Preventing unwanted pregnancies, allowing families to space their pregnancies, allows us to better control our infant mortality rate."

She does not hide her  animosity at having a project that  enjoyed strong funding for the past  five years cut and being told that she now is responsible for administering a program with funding for a project she preferred  to outsource.  Is this why she is resisting providing this service unlike all  other 94 counties in TN ?  She continues to insist  she will do it on a month  to month basis and refuses to rule out outsourcing it to Planned Parenthood. 

Ms. Madlock  needs to live in the real world where we do our jobs and get over our disappointment when our preferred projects are not funded and assignments are not of our choosing.  

Yet Madlock continues to strong arm her superiors showing  a strong  loyalty to Planned Parenthood.

"Though both she and Planned Parenthood’s Shelby County director, Barry Chase, said on Friday there had been no direct communications between them for several weeks, the bottom line seemed to be that, as Madlock said last week, Planned Parenthood continued to be on her list of hypothetical family service partners."

I encourage Ms. Madlock to look at Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga  and than to remind her of the above quote about the mandate of protecting the health of the community that employs her.




Photo: Commercial Appeal