“My first day on the job, a staff member took me on a driving tour of our seven clinics, which primarily served low income women. I was highly impressed by the quality of the medical services and staff but distressed by the environment in which those services were delivered. Many of the clinics were dilapidated. The furniture was decrepit. The medical staff wore T–shirts and jeans. I worried that women coming into these clinics might feel as though they were not deserving of medical settings comparable to those more prosperous women would expect. I made the same point to our board in their next meeting.
“We should not provide medical services in these settings, and the fact that we serve mostly poor women does not justify the conditions of these clinics. It’s an insult to poor women to strive for anything less than what other women would expect.”
Kate Michelman Protecting the Right to Choose (New York: Plume, 2007) 33
One would question, if the clinic were “dilapidated” and “decrepit” if the medical care given was really “impressive?”
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