The building is located on a peaceful section of Palisades Court that doesn’t appear to be much from the road, a few blocks off Skyland Boulevard. Three stories, ten thousand square feet, and a parking lot that fills up more quickly than anyone could have imagined. For a clinic that hasn’t yet had what most people would consider an official opening, the waiting area inside is busier than it should be. There is a backlog of appointments. The phones never stop ringing. As you walk through, you get the impression that the demand has been quietly building for years and has at last found a way to push.
On April 25, WAWC Healthcare—formerly known as the West Alabama Women’s Center—moved into the new location. Although Medicaid and insurance are accepted at the clinic, Executive Director Robin Marty has made it clear that neither is necessary. Nobody is turned away because of money. Part of the rush can be explained by that alone in a state where labor and delivery units have become somewhat of a rarity and rural hospitals continue to close. It’s more difficult to identify the other part. It’s more akin to relief.
The clinic saw about 250 patients each month prior to Roe v. Wade being overturned in 2022, nearly all of whom were seeking abortions. The work was altered following the decision, but foot traffic did not significantly decrease. Marty reported that 243 patients were seen at the clinic last month. The numbers appear to be familiar. The appointments don’t. Longer discussions about mental health, STI testing, contraception, prenatal care, and the kinds of follow-up questions that are neglected when a doctor is rushing are now part of visits that used to last twenty or thirty minutes.
Marty appears to be most protective of the new mental health wing. The program’s director, Tamela Hughes, stated that the objective is to make seeing a therapist seem commonplace, both logistically and culturally. That minor architectural decision is significant in Alabama, where mental health services are, at best, inconsistent and nonexistent in some counties. The wing might fill up more quickly than anyone anticipated. Early indicators point to it already being.
Additionally, the clinic has exam rooms that are twice as large as it was before, birthing suites, and a food pantry hidden inside the structure. In contrast to the previous location on Jack Warner Parkway, classes are now held in a community space. Marty has long expressed a desire for wraparound care, and the building was made possible by an Actions for Women’s Healthcare grant. As it opens, there’s a sense that the clinic is attempting to perform the functions of three or four institutions simultaneously because no one else in the area is doing them.
That raises the more difficult question. The incidence of cervical cancer in Alabama is the fourth highest in the nation. Nearly 57 pregnancy-related deaths occur for every 100,000 live births, which is significantly higher than the national average of 32.9. Since 2009, nine rural hospitals have closed. The percentage of rural hospitals that still perform births is only thirty percent. No matter how ambitious, a single clinic cannot resolve any of that. The discrepancy between what WAWC is trying to accomplish and what the state really needs is difficult to ignore.
Marty has been direct about it. According to her, community cannot be replaced by telemedicine or mobile units. You can’t expect trust to come from helicoptering in care. The clinic’s model is based on the opposite theory, which holds that people react best to members of their own community who have been trained since high school and are integrated into the same neighborhoods. The question of whether that model can scale is different and is unlikely to be addressed anytime soon.
The appointments continue to fill up for the time being. The phones are ringing nonstop. In actuality, the new clinic is already oversubscribed.
