Family Planning of Southeast Iowa opened about a year after Planned Parenthood closed clinics in Burlington and Keokuk due to state funding cuts.

U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack got an early look Monday at Burlington's new family planning clinic established in the wake of two Planned Parenthood closures in southeast Iowa.

Opened in June, Family Planning of Southeast Iowa was established as a federal Title X clinic operated by Great River Health System. The Title X distinction allows the clinic to serve patients on a sliding fee scale, regardless of their ability to pay medical bills.

Federal grant funding and support from Great River are only a portion of the clinic's financial makeup, however.

"We also greatly rely on community support and contributions," said Robert Poetting, director of family medicine for Great River Health System. "All of those things have to be in play, I think it'd be fair to say, for the clinic to do well long term. And so far, all of those issues are moving in the right direction."

Clinic manager Cherry Klein told Loebsack they have served more than 250 individual patients since the clinic's summer opening. Though Planned Parenthood reached about 2,000 annual patients in Burlington, she said the clinic's numbers were on track with what they projected.

"There was a big gap in southeast Iowa," said Klein of the lack of affordable family planning services after Planned Parenthood's closure.

As another way to raise money, patients are asked if they want to make a donation to the clinic.

"We've actually had a pretty big response from that because people are just so happy to have a clinic here," Klein said.

In June 2017, Planned Parenthood clinics in Burlington and Keokuk were among the four clinics shuttered due to funding cuts enacted by the Iowa Legislature. Republican lawmakers and former GOP Gov. Terry Branstad approved a Health and Human Services budget that eliminated state funding for health care providers offering abortion services.

While no abortions were performed at the local clinics, because some facilities within Planned Parenthood of the Heartland offer abortion services, their state funding was nixed.

Instead, a roughly $3 million state-run family planning program was established to fill the void. In May, the Associated Press reported fewer Iowans participated in the program than they did when a larger number of health care providers were accepted.

Family Planning of Southeast Iowa, 801 S. Roosevelt Ave., offers a full range of reproductive health services for women and men, including birth control; pap smears and breast examinations; sexually transmitted disease testing and treatment; HIV testing; vaccinations; and pregnancy tests.

Loebsack, re-elected in November to a seventh term in the House of Representatives, noted that while family planning services may be "controversial" for some people, having a Democratic majority in the House should help ensure funding for federal grants that aid clinics like Burlington's.

"We've got to make sure that funding for these kinds of programs continues going forward," said Loebsack, a Democrat from Iowa City. "Things are pretty much set for Fiscal (Year) '19 right now for Title X, those kinds of programs that are really important for these kinds of clinics here. But then after that, we got to make sure that we continue to fund these services."

Locally, Klein said the high rate of sexually transmitted diseases occupied much of their time at the clinic.

"The STD rate in southeast Iowa is really high right now," she said, noting Des Moines County inexplicably had the highest per-capita rate of gonorrhea infections in the state.

And as of this week, Family Planning of Southeast Iowa now offers a form of HIV testing that gives patients immediate results.

"We have to fill gaps (in service) that are created for, what I think, are no good reason whatsoever," Loebsack said. "And this is clearly one of them."