Marquette urgent care becomes first in country to offer medication abortion services

MARQUETTE, Mich. (WLUC) - Marquette Medical Urgent Care is offering in-person abortion services.

When Planned Parenthood in Marquette shut down in April, the U.P. lost its only in-person clinic providing abortion services. That same month, a former worker at Planned Parenthood and members of the community came together to determine the next steps.

“The community sort of rallied around that and we decided to house it out of this Urgent Care, which is the first Urgent Care in the country to be providing medication abortion services,” said Dr. Viktoria Koskenoja, Director of Abortion Services at Marquette Medical Urgent Care.

Marquette Medical Urgent Care has been offering medication abortion services since July. It can also provide ultrasounds and pregnancy support.

Koskenoja says the process here is the same as the process at Planned Parenthood. The difference between the two is Planned Parenthood provided more reproductive health services.

“Affordable contraception, affordable STI testing, it was able to provide gender-affirming care and a lot of things that are now gaps in the community, and we have greater plans with Reproductive Health Resources to fill in more of those gaps,” said Koskenoja.

Koskenoja says Marquette Medical Urgent Care’s partnership with Reproductive Health Resources has allowed the clinic to offset costs for those seeking care.

“We have patients pay what they’re able to, on a sliding fee scale, out-of-pocket, and whatever the deficit is of those costs, we have that covered by Reproductive Health Resources,” said Dr. Shawn Brown, Owner & Medical Director of Marquette Medical Urgent Care.

Brown says a $45 co-pay is the initial cost up-front for everybody who comes in. Then, the facility will determine what other resources are necessary for them.

“For folks who are unable to pay the remainder of that balance, we can use funds that are brought in by Reproductive Health Resources,” Brown said. “We also have funds coming from Hydra, which is a downstate abortion resources network. We have funds coming from the Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids and we have funding coming from FemInEM, which is an emergency medicine women’s interest organization nationwide. We also have folks who donate gas cards for people who are driving from Wisconsin or if we have unique circumstances, like a teenager who’s in a very unsafe home situation and needs to be put up in a hotel for a couple of days, we can help facilitate that as well.”

“Anybody can come in,” said Koskenoja. “We’ve had people from Wisconsin. We’ve had women from seven counties in the U.P. drive here for this service.”

Meanwhile, Brown says the community-run organization is supporting the facility with other endeavors.

“Increased birth control access, potential cancer screenings, we’re talking about how we can create a free community clinic,” said Brown. “This is a group of people who really just want to support the health of our community.”

Marquette Medical Urgent Care is open 8 a.m.-6 p.m. ET, seven days a week.

The urgent care facility also has a Sexual Assault Nurse Examination (SANE) program in conjunction with the Marquette Women’s Center, where victims who are at least 13 years old and have experienced an assault within the past five days can seek care. 24/7 support is provided.

You can call Marquette Medical Urgent Care at 906-225-1346 after hours or the Women’s Center at 906-226-6611.