Paso Robles health clinic to close due to SLO County budget cuts
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- County proposes reducing Paso Robles clinic services to save $474K amid $38M budget cuts.
- Clinic serves 1,400 patients annually with low-cost, bilingual reproductive care.
- Reduction risks care loss for rural, Spanish-speaking residents lacking alternatives.
Juana Gómez has relied on the Paso Robles reproductive health clinic for primary care for over two decades, drawn by its Spanish-speaking providers and low-cost services.
Without the cost subsidy program offered at the clinic, the uninsured Gómez knows of no other affordable healthcare options in her area.
Now, the clinic is expected to close due to massive county budget cuts.
The county says all the same services will be offered by another community provider that is set to take over the clinic’s patient base, but community members worry about the transition, the loss of a trusted resource and what it will mean to a vulnerable population with limited options for medical care.
Yessenia Echevarria, executive director of the Latino community organization Mujeres de Acción, said the potential closure feels like a step backward.
“Why are we talking about eliminating a clinic that is successful, that is serving marginalized community members, and adding more barriers? Right? Like, that doesn’t make sense,” Echevarria told The Tribune.
The county-run reproductive health clinic in Paso Robles, located at 805 4th St., provides vital family planning services, sexually transmitted infection diagnosis and treatment, birth control and cancer screenings to 1,400 clients per year, county spokesperson Tom Cuddy told The Tribune.
The clinic is also one of few medical centers in North County that offers subsidized, bilingual and culturally competent care for Spanish speakers and patients without private health insurance — like Gómez.
The Board of Supervisors considered the closure of the Paso clinic, along with other county health agency programs, at a public hearing during Tuesday’s board meeting.
While no official decisions have been made yet, the county is under pressure to find services to cut in order to balance its budget.
Central Coast nonprofit Community Health Centers of the Central Coast (CHC) — which has locations across the county, including in Templeton, Atascadero, San Miguel and Paso Robles — has offered to take over services for the county’s Paso clinic, providing all the same healthcare subsidy programs and language services.
But the initial transition has gotten off to a bumpy start.
SLO Health Agency Director Nick Drews told The Tribune that though the Paso clinic has begun referring its patients to CHC, the message appears to not have gotten across to all, including Gómez.
Clinic is critical to Paso woman’s health care
Word of the clinic’s possible closure has left Gómez is worried about finding other care and the potential cost.
Currently a resident of San Miguel and formerly of Paso Robles, she has been going to the clinic since 2001.
She’s been able to afford medical care thanks to the state subsidized “Every Woman Counts” program that provides free breast and cervical cancer screening and diagnostic services to low-income Californian populations, which was especially helpful when she was having chest problems, she said.
“It’s a bit sad and a bit worrisome if the clinic closes, because if I don’t have access to that program, I’m not going to follow up on my chest anymore,” she told The Tribune in Spanish. “I’m going to wait to see what happens. Hopefully, if I get sick, I can go to the hospital to get treated.”
Gómez cannot afford medical care without the program that helps pay for it, she said. With a monthly household income around $3,000 and the high cost of living in SLO County, paying for medical care on top of rent, gas and other expenses isn’t an option for her.
“It’s very important to have a clinic like this because you can start at a low cost with comfortable care. … We cannot afford more when rents are high,” she said. “For my situation, I have to receive (low-cost) medical care or I have to live without it. I know I don’t have other options.”
She said she is still looking for new providers, which has been made difficult by longer driving distances and wait times at clinics outside of Paso Robles. She must also ensure any new clinic accepts the subsidy program she uses and has a doctor that speaks Spanish.
“Something that won’t make me feel comfortable is if I go to a provider and they are going to press a button (to translate). It’s uncomfortable for me to sign up and be checked,” she said.
Reproductive health care could be lost
The proposal to defund the clinic comes amid huge county budget cuts totaling $38 million, the largest portion of which falls on county health agencies.
The fiscal year 2025-26 recommended budget cites staffing issues and public health priorities as reasons for closing the clinic.
According to the recommended budget, staffing has been a challenge for this clinic, which has previously resulted in temporary closures when a nurse wasn’t available.
The closure of the clinic would save the county $474,071, partly due to laying off 6 full-time employees — a supervising public health nurse, two public health aides, two administrative assistants and one nurse practitioner.
Other services offered at county public health clinics in the same building would remain open, offering limited care including vaccinations, immunizations, tuberculosis testing and other infectious disease diagnosis and monitoring, Cuddy said.
But other key care, such as reproductive health and family planning services, would go away, Cuddy said.
As a part of the proposed cuts, the county’s Reproductive Health Program was recommended for elimination, including the reproductive and family planning services currently offered at the Paso Robles clinic.
At its May 20 meeting, the board discussed how family planning and reproductive services might be provided elsewhere if the county follows through with ending those services at the clinic.
Supervisors specifically asked which other clinics could absorb patients, if those clinics could provide Spanish-speaking services and how to make sure transportation and access were not obstacles to getting care.
Could nonprofit take over Paso clinic’s space?
At that time, Drews said Community Health Centers and other entities the county has reached out to may be interested in potentially taking over the clinic’s “exact” operations.
On Tuesday, he told The Tribune that CHC would be taking over the Paso clinic’s services at their locations, including offering subsidy programs like Every Woman Counts and Family PACT as well as Spanish- and Mixteco-speaking providers.
“We’re trying to fill the gaps through other ways,” Drews said during public comment on May 20. “We’re optimistic that the services will ... continue to be provided.”
Cuddy also said there have been informal discussions about the possibility of subletting the Paso clinic space to Community Health Centers or another service provider to continue care in the same spot, but that no decisions have been made and all ideas are conceptual only at this stage.
“Our focus remains on aligning services with available resources while prioritizing the community’s health and well-being,” Cuddy told The Tribune. “We are communicating directly with impacted staff and clients to ensure they are informed and supported, including connecting clients with alternative care options if needed.”
Paso Robles clinic built trust over years
In a notice about the potential closure that was distributed to patients of the Paso clinic, the county offered referrals “in some cases” to other service providers — including providers who are able to serve community members without private or commercial insurance coverage. This would include CHC.
But Echevarria said that even if the county can find a way to transition services, the foundational trust that has taken providers at the Paso clinic years to build up with their patients won’t follow.
“With healthcare access, you have to build trust,” especially among minority groups like the Latino community, she said. “That’s our biggest concern right now, is what is going to happen to that institution, because it’s taken years upon years to build that trust.”
Echevarria said this trust-building is most important among minority groups like the Latino and indigenous Mixteco communities, the latter of which is the quickly growing in SLO County, she said.
According to a recent study on SLO County’s immigrant population, over half (53%) of Spanish-speaking residents surveyed in 2023 delayed seeking healthcare due to cost, compared to 40% of all survey respondents.
“When we talk about family planning that is culturally appropriate and things like that, more than ever ... we need to protect these vulnerable communities,” Echevarria said.
At the May 20 meting, Amy Salas from Paso Robles presented a petition to keep the clinic open that at the time was signed by 398 residents, including multiple doctors, she said. As of Wednesday morning, the petition was up to 620 signatures.
“Other provider options in the North County would only be able to offer services sporadically,” she said during public comment.
The proposal to close the Paso clinic is pending approval by the Board of Supervisors and was discussed among all proposed health agency reductions on Tuesday. Final budget decisions will be made during upcoming budget hearings on June 9-11, and any changes in funding and employment will take effect July 1.
“I hope that the supervisors will reconsider their their this proposal of putting the clinic on the chopping block,” Echevarria said. “It’s just of huge concern, especially in our community or county that just doesn’t have enough access.”
