Tempe Planned Parenthood employees and volunteers took sledgehammers to their own walls Sunday.
The nonprofit sexual health and family planning group is gutting its Tempe clinic to make room for renovations that will accommodate more patients and a larger educational outreach program, said spokeswoman Melissa Fink.
Clinic officials hope the facility will be ready to serve an estimated 2,000 patients per month when it reopens in late February 2007, Fink said.
Prior to closing for the renovations, the clinic, which services ASU students, was one of the organization's busiest facilities in the Valley, Fink said. Clinicians there saw an estimated 1,200 patients per month for various procedures -about 450 were abortions.Abortions are only a minor part of the operation, Fink said.
The renovation will mean Planned Parenthood will have the space to hold educational programs that focus on preventing unwanted pregnancies, she added.
"Ninety percent of what we do is prevention," Fink said. "Now we can do that better, more often and more effectively."
The Tempe clinic is the first of nine Planned Parenthood clinics in Central and Northern Arizona to undergo renovations in a campaign to create medical and educational "hubs" in the Valley, said Bryan Howard, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Central and Northern Arizona.
These hubs will offer sex-education classes where parents can learn how to have "the talk" with their children, and people can discuss sexual health issues, Fink said.
Previously, most of those classes were centered at Planned Parenthood's central Phoenix location, which was inconvenient for many people living in other Valley communities, she added.
The new clinic will be named after Nina Surowicz Smith, a Planned Parenthood supporter who recently died of ovarian cancer.
Surowicz Smith worked as an internal medicine physician at ASU's Campus Health Service for 10 years and was an advocate for student sexual health well-being, said her husband William E. Smith.
"It's a good fit because this clinic serves a lot of students," Smith said. "It will provide a comforting atmosphere in some traumatic situations."
Planned Parenthood raised $1.8 million for the Tempe renovations and has a $4.2 million fundraising goal to renovate eight other clinics.
Reach the reporter at: annalyn.censky@asu.edu.
