Planned Parenthood has a new home

    The employees of Planned Parenthood in Washington are enjoying their new digs located at 311 N. Fourth Ave. They like it so much they are having an open house Tuesday from 3 to 5:30 p.m. at the clinic.

    The Planned Parenthood clinic was moved to the Fourth Avenue location on Jan. 26 from its former location south of the courthouse on Main Street. Carol Greiner, the clinic manager, said they have more space in the new building than they did at their former location. 

    ?The part for the patients is much larger here,? said Greiner. ?Our patients appreciate the new clinic. Everybody walks in and says, ?Oh, this is much larger, much nicer.? The office space in the back may have downsized a little bit, but the waiting room is bigger.?

    The building Planned Parenthood moved into was formerly home to ?Curves.? Greiner said the building used to have a big open space in the middle, but that was not convenient for the kinds of offices Planned Parenthood wanted to install. She said the group had to put in walls and partitions to ensure the privacy they sought.

    ?We?re still getting used to the new building,? said Greiner. ?It does have a more professional look to it.?

    Terri McGrath is a nurse practitioner who has worked at Planned Parenthood for 10 years. She said one of the things she likes about the new location is that the clients don?t have to compete over parking with the courthouse and other businesses on Main Street. Greiner added that the new location offers more privacy because it is not in the heart of the city?s downtown.

    Greiner said that there was a bit of a parking problem last week when the Mills Seed Building rolled down Third Street. She said that a number of residents parked outside Planned Parenthood when they came to take photographs of the building being moved.

For the full story, see the Feb. 4 edition of The Washington Evening Journal