By Gail Binkly

Representatives of two organizations that help fill the holes in the proverbial social safety net were told by the Montezuma County commissioners on Monday that they’ll be considered for funding in the 2000 budget.

The commission will begin serious budget discussions next week, commission chairman Gene Story told representatives of Planned Parenthood and the Christian Emergency Shelter.

Paddy McSherry, clinic manager for the Cortez Planned Parenthood, told the commissioners that while the clinic receives state and federal monies, it receives nothing locally, and there are some services that need funding.

For instance, she said, some 20 to 25 percent of the clinic’s 850 clients are postmenopausal women, and there is no money to provide them with hormone-replacement therapy.

"For some of our ladies, this is the only health care they get all year because they’re not 65" and eligible for Medicare, she said. While the clinic receives money from Denver to provide Pap smears and mammograms for the older women, hormone-replacement therapy is not funded, she said.

Likewise, while there is money to test for sexually transmitted diseases, there isn’t any for treating the diseases, she said.

And unexpected situations can arise. When an uninsured teenager recently came to the clinic with a breast lump, McSherry said, she wasn’t covered for the usual mammogram services because she wasn’t old enough.

"I called Denver and they did arrange to provide the funding," she said. "Once in a while you can get them to do extras, but it has to be a particular circumstance."

In addition to providing birth control, the Cortez clinic offers such services as blood-pressure checks for seniors, pregnancy testing, and testing for AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, she said. Abortions are not performed at the local clinic.

"Probably the biggest group we see are high-school kids," she said. "Some are sexually active and want to get on birth control. We encourage them, if they’re sexually active, to think about it and at least use condoms (to protect against disease).

"When we get these little girls whose boyfriends are urging them to have sex, we tell them to wait till they’re ready. It’s their body."

If the Cortez clinic can raise any local money, McSherry said, she would like to see it stay here to provide services rather than going to the administration in Denver.

Story and Commissioner Kelly Wilson said the clinic is filling a necessary function and they would consider it in their budget discussions.

Later in the day they heard from Fred and Nancy Thomas and Blake Cahill, all from the Christian Emergency Shelter.

The shelter, which started operating last winter, provides a place for alcoholics and street people to stay overnight in cold weather. Volunteers drive a van around Cortez every evening looking for men who are on the streets and offer them a bed at the shelter south of town on Highway 666. (Women are housed in motels because the shelter has no separate housing for them.) In the morning, they are brought back to town.

Last winter, Cahill said, there were approximately 1,804 overnight stays at the site. Since it costs the city $48 a night to house a person at the jail, the shelter saved the city more than $86,000, he said.

In addition, Southwest Memorial Hospital officials said the shelter had saved the hospital $50,000 by housing men who had been brought to the emergency room instead of having them stay at the ER for observation.

Five of the "core group" of 20 or 25 men that were frequently brought to the shelter are now in rehabilitation programs, he said.

Last year the shelter operated on a cash budget of $15,000, according to Cahill. Now its leaders are seeking funds for next year.

"I’d like to expand what we’re doing," Cahill said, "maybe have someone down there all day or be able to keep someone on staff."

Fred Thomas said the volunteer group also wants to discuss how it can phase its program in with the detox unit that will be included in the old county jail when a new jail is built.

"We could augment the staff, make it so they don’t have to hire so many people," Thomas said. "We could do our thing at the same time. We’d like to have a kitchen as our part of the contribution; I think it’s important to get food into those guys."