A `woman-to-woman’ health center

It is fitting that the Mabel Wadsworth Women’s Health Center’s new home is in a converted military-recruiting office. The Bangor-based organization has been on the front lines in a battle over government regulations it considers restrictive. At a time when federal funding is in jeopardy for agencies that counsel on such matters as abortion and homosexuality, for example, MWWHC stresses that it is fueled only by private donations and the revenue from services it provides.

“That’s why we started this organization,” Ruth Lockhart, a founder of MWWHC and now its director, said recently. “We realized the need for a single-purpose, free-standing, non-government-funded organization.”

On Sept. 8, MWWHC will take its first clients for clinical services at its new location at Bangor’s Intown Plaza on Harlow Street. The appointment book for that evening is already full.

Named for a Bangor woman who pioneered family planning in the area, the center aims to provide clinical services, educational programs and political advocacy on related issues.

It has served more than 6,000 women over the years, Lockhart estimates. Its educational programs include the annual “Health in Our Hands” seminars, which cover topics such as menopause, birth control, abortion, sexually transmitted diseases, and lesbian health care. Many of its programs, including traveling clinics conducted at various satellite locations, target lesbian women, said Lockhart.

But before now, it only offered clinical services for a short period in 1986-87, and that on a limited basis of one afternoon a week. Even that became cumbersome, however, since the staff worked full time at other jobs. Most recently services have been confined to pregnancy tests, neonatal education and reproductive-health counseling, while women seeking more involved procedures have been referred to private physicians.

That the health center now can provide more on-premises clinical services — such as pap smears, annual examinations, breast exams, and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases and vaginitis — appears to end another skirmish in its eight-year history.

Lockhart said there were no immediate plans to include testing for the AIDS virus, but wouldn’t rule it out as a future possibility.

The facility’s fees will be below private physicians’ rates and clients will be able to make appointments sooner than they otherwise might, according to Lockhart. She said clients can arrange payment schedules, if necessary. The facility will do insurance billing, she said, and is trying to arrange for payment by Medicare and Medicaid.

The agency, which has been at two other locations since its founding in 1984, plans to be at its new home for a while. A five-year lease was signed in June with the owner, Fransway Realty, which renovated the space to MWWHC’s specifications.

The center houses two offices, two examining rooms, a laboratory, reception and waiting areas, all furnished with donated furniture and equipment. Space also is available at the center for groups to hold meetings or for self-help meetings.

At the start, the health center will offer clinical services five days a month. The schedule is not finalized, but will include some evenings.

Original plans called for the center to open full time, but last year’s controversial “gag rule” forbidding federally funded agencies from counseling women about abortion — a law overturned this year — spurred the agency to action sooner than intended.

“We were almost propelled into it,” said Lockhart, stressing MWWHC’s no-federal-funding status.

The five-member staff comprises Lockhart, two nurse practitioners, and an osteopathic physician, all overseen by Jean Curran, a Bangor gynecologist in private practice who will act as supervising physician. All staff members are volunteering their time, for now, but Lockhart expects that they eventually will be paid.

Also, all are female, she said.

“This is a woman-to-woman practice.”

The Mabel Wadsworth Women’s Health Center at the Intown Plaza on Harlow Street in Bangor will hold an open house 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 16.