Las Vegas Now | UMC's Cuts Affect 3 Women's Programs

UMC's Cuts Affect 3 Women's Programs

Budgets cuts have slashed seven health care programs at University Medical Center and three of those programs deal specifically with women's health care.

A high-risk obstetrics unit, mammography services and the University Women's Center which

Twenty-year-old Danielle, who prefers not to give her last name, was born and raised in Las Vegas. She is fourteen weeks pregnant and at Nevada Health Centers OB/GYN Clinic for pre-natal care. She is here because she can't afford health care.

"It's important because you need to make sure everything is going okay for yourself and for your baby," Danielle said. She has a job, but doesn't make enough to pay for insurance. If it weren't for this health center, she would not be getting any pre-natal care.

"I probably wouldn't even be seeing a doctor right now," she said.  Her story is similar to others that Dr. Frank Anderson hears every day. 

Dr. Anderson works for Nevada Health Centers which treats medically indigent patients. He is expecting he will see a big increase in patients with the cut of UMC's programs.

"We definitely will be inundated with more patients. The object is to get patients not to go into the emergency room, that's what you want," said Dr. Frank Anderson, OB/GYN.

And the planning has already started. 

"We've already started thinking about how many doctors we can bring in with the doctors we have available now," he said.

Anderson does worry that there will be longer waiting times now that more women will need the services of his clinic as well as others that help the medically indigent. There is also concern that some women may now shy away from getting medical attention.