By Chuck Duarte

In a recent interview, Dean Heller made false claims about Planned Parenthood. He incorrectly claimed that federal taxpayer money goes to providing abortion. It doesn’t, except for rare cases of rape, incest, or when the mother’s life is at risk. He implied that if Planned Parenthood is “defunded”, that Community Health Centers (CHCs) can replace Planned Parenthood and care for their patients.

This isn’t the first time Dean Heller has put this claim forward.

As the CEO of Community Health Alliance -- a community health center network serving almost 30,000 Northern Nevada residents annually -- I know first-hand that this is not possible. While CHCs provide women’s health services, CHCs cannot fill the gap if Planned Parenthood is “defunded.”

There is a large share of family planning patients that Planned Parenthood serves in Nevada, amid an existing provider shortage in Nevada. Eliminating access to Planned Parenthood would be a public health disaster with the largest burden falling on the uninsured, those living in underserved areas and communities of color.

When it comes to women’s health, our state needs Planned Parenthood. Nevada ranks 50th -- last in the nation -- in the rate of women who have a dedicated health-care provider and near the bottom in the rate of cervical cancer screenings. Las Vegas has the highest risk of OB-GYN shortages of the top 50 metropolitan areas in the country.

We need more health-care providers, not fewer. Nevada often ranks among the worst for health care in the country, and all of our state’s 17 counties are designated health shortage areas because of a low doctor to patient ratio. And in 2014, Nevada providers were only able to meet 10 percent of the need for publicly funded family planning services.

Planned Parenthood health centers served 36 percent of all family planning patients who were served by publicly funded providers in Nevada. Notably, in both Clark County and Washoe County, Planned Parenthood health centers provided services to nearly half of all patients seeking contraceptive services at publicly funded providers in 2015.

With the shortage of providers that already exists in Nevada, without Planned Parenthood, many of these patients would likely go without care. Without Planned Parenthood services, there would be more unintended pregnancies and more undetected cancers.

CHCs simply cannot meet this need. At CHA, we provide family planning and women’s health services as a part of our primary care services for patients of all ages. We also offer dental, behavioral health, pharmacy and nutrition services for our patients. While family planning and women’s health services are available, we do not have the capacity to take over the vital role Planned Parenthood plays in our health-care system. A “defunded” Planned Parenthood would leave a tremendous void in women’s health care that cannot be readily filled by other organizations.

And you don’t have to take my word alone. The idea that other providers could absorb Planned Parenthood’s patients has been resoundingly dismissed by health experts. Dr. Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association, called the idea “ludicrous." Sara Rosenbaum, a noted Community Health Center expert, added that “the assertion that community health centers could step into a breach of this magnitude is simply wrong and displays a fundamental misunderstanding of how the health-care system works.”

The fact is Planned Parenthood health centers and CHCs work together to meet the needs of our patients. We often refer patients to Planned Parenthood for their reproductive health-care needs, and Planned Parenthood will refer patients to us for other needs that we specialize in.

Without Planned Parenthood, thousands of Nevadans would be left without essential reproductive health care.

I implore Senator Heller to stop with the misleading information. I implore all of our representatives to learn about what Planned Parenthood health centers do. We cannot afford to lose this critical health-care provider that so many Nevadans depend on.

Chuck Duarte is the CEO of Community Health Alliance, a nonprofit health center with more than 30,000 Washoe County-area patients. From 2000-2012, he was the Nevada Medicaid administrator. He also administered the Hawaii Medicaid program in the 1990s.