Greene County Family Planning’s 50th Anniversary

Full interview about the history of Greene County Family Planning featuring Barbara Bird, Barbara Caldara, and Laura Churchill.

Our History

1973-1984

Greene County Family Planning opened in 1973 as part of Greene County Memorial Hospital. Barbara Bird, a registered nurse from Indiana filled out the first grant application to the federal Title X program. At the time, many people doubted that the funding would last more than a year.

Barbara Bird became the clinic’s first director and was one of the first eight certified Nurse Practitioners in New York state. To this day, the Family Planning is a nurse practitioner-run clinic. Under her direction, the clinic became one of the first in the state to be able to test for chlamydia through a PILOT program with the state Department of Health.

The clinic’s mission was to provide birth control information and services, primarily to women from low-income households. Initially, these services were offered at no charge but it eventually switched over to a sliding scale, which is still used today for uninsured patients. About 45% of our patients are under 100% of the federal poverty level.

1984-1992

In 1984, the hospital closed, and Greene County Public Health Department absorbed the Family Planning clinic. Barbara Caldara, who began working with Family Planning in 1974 under Barbara Bird first as a family planning aid, then a registered nurse, completed her training as a nurse practitioner and became director, as her mentor moved on to a position with the state Health Department.

During the height of the HIV epidemic, Family Planning changed its procedures to include wearing gloves for blood draws, a practice that is now commonplace. With help from the state, the family planning aides integrated counseling and testing for HIV into their care. Originally, the nurses needed permission to test for HIV, but now this test is included in a standard STI panel unless the patient opts out.

2004-present

2004 brought a lot of changes to Family Planning, including Laura Churchill coming on board as director.

HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) became available around this time to patients who are at high risk of contracting HIV. The clinic also began billing third-party insurance for contraceptives in 2004, but insurance providers were not required to cover birth control until 2012. The passage of Expedited Partner Treatment in 2010 allowed clinic to prescribe antibiotics for STIs to a patient’s partner (as well as the patient) without having to examine them.