The Nurse Practitioner Healthcare Grace clinic, located on the corner of Third and Portland streets, provides health services to low-income and uninsured people in the downtown Phoenix area. They offer family-planning services, sexually transmitted infection testing for a reduced cost and a safe place to discuss their clients’ reproductive health needs.
But the clinic shares its campus with a seemingly unlikely partner — Grace Lutheran Church.
“I think it’s pretty amazing that a church hosts a clinic like this, and I love it that we are a place where people can get their reproductive needs met,” Grace Lutheran Pastor Sarah Stadler-Ammon said.
The clinic is a Title X federally-funded, nurse-managed establishment, according to clinic director Denise Link, who is also a clinical associate professor for the College of Nursing and Health Innovation. They have been located at the Grace Lutheran campus for about 11 years. The church lets the clinic use the space rent-free and considers the clinic an important asset to its community outreach efforts.
About 98 percent of the clinic’s clients live below the poverty level and 75 percent speak only Spanish, according to the clinic’s website.
The majority of the patients are women and the family-planning services are the most highly requested services Link said.
“The people we serve would not have access to health care if we were not here,” said Claudia Zamarron, the clinic’s office supervisor. “The cost is based on annual income and number of people who live at their house. Clients either qualify for a discount visit or a donation visit.”
The mission of the clinic is to “provide comprehensive, accessible, culturally acceptable reproductive health care to underserved populations in Phoenix and the surrounding area, educational experiences for undergraduate and graduate students, and opportunities for faculty practice and research,” their website said.
According to a report from the nonprofit reproductive health advocacy organization Guttmacher Institute, about 49 percent of the 6.7 million pregnancies in the United State are unintended.
The services provided at NP Healthcare Grace help patients understand the benefits of planning and taking care of their reproductive health Link said.
“It’s been shown in research that having easy access to a method of contraception of your choice reduces the chance of unintended pregnancies, and therefore abortion as well,” Link said. “A lot of people don’t understand that. When I say family planning, many people ask me if we do abortions here. My reply is always ‘No, we prevent them.’”
Despite popular notions and stigmas surrounding the relationship between churches in America and the use of contraception and family-planning services, Stadler-Ammon said that the Grace Lutheran congregation is accepting and supportive of the clinic and its practices.
“Our particular congregation is probably more open than most congregations in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America,” Stadler-Ammon said. “We’re in the city, and in most big cities, people tend to be more open socially and politically overall.”
Stadler-Ammon explained that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has an official social statement about human sexuality that views sexuality as a gift from God. The ELCA social statement states that the church “supports the development and use of medical products, birth control, and initiatives that support fulfilling and responsible sexuality.”
“Our church body on the larger level is very supportive of this kind of work,” Stadler-Ammon said. “People are very supportive of them distributing contraception and educating people about things like HIV. We should take care of ourselves and we value education.”
Students from the College of Nursing and Health Innovation also work in the clinic to fulfill their clinical requirement hours.
The clinic is open to the public and all visits are completely confidential. The clinic offers tests for chlamydia for all males and females under 25 and multiple methods of birth control including condoms and emergency contraceptives. Nurses at the clinic also help clients who need assistance in other ways find the resources they need.
“I have lots of community outreach that we can send patients to so they can get those other concerns taken care of,” Link said. “It’s a point of pride for ASU that we have this service. We’re embedded in the community, and we’re reaching out to the community.”
The Nurse Practitioner Healthcare Grace clinic is open Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Appointments are appreciated, but walk-in visits are welcome.
Contact the reporter at lindsay.robinson@asu.edu
