Medical

New “House of Horrors”: widespread health and safety violations discovered at Virginia abortion clinics

Virginia has America’s next “house of horrors.”

Through the Freedom of Information Act, Virginia’s Family Foundation was able to access reports made on abortion clinics throughout the state of Virginia. Family Foundation’s press release paints a grim story:

According to Commissioner Karen Remley’s report to the Board of Health at the June 2012 meeting, nine of 20 abortion centers applying for licensing had been inspected by the Department of Health.  According to the Commissioner of Health, none had been ‘deficiency free.’

Some key findings:

  • The nine centers inspected had received 80 citations
  • 18 citations for personnel issues, including no background checks, no ongoing plans for staff training, no maintenance of personnel files, no policy requiring staff to be CPR trained, no policies setting experience and training required to practice
  • 13 citations for infections prevention issues, including seven clinics with no clear division between clean and dirty utility areas, four centers where personnel weren’t using personal protective equipment and a host of record keeping issues
  • 10 citations regarding the administration, storage and dispensing of drugs including four with expired drugs in stock, and others with improper labeling of drugs, no medication dispensing policy
  • 10 maintenance of equipment citations including equipment not in good repair, no preventative maintenance plan
  • Six citations for local and state building code violations

Not one was deficiency-free? Eighty citations shared among only nine clinics? This is a problem, folks, and a horrendous one at that. If an abortion clinic is truly a medical facility, it has absolutely no excuse for dirty areas, a lack of personal protective equipment, a failure to background-check employees or require CPR training, and expired drugs on the shelf. But these findings don’t even begin to paint the picture.

LifeSiteNews reported on the entire Virginia investigation and related that the details concerned a Planned Parenthood clinic in Virginia Beach (Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Virginia):

…[T]he inspector’s report states, ‘Employee #4 was asked how she could tell which of the containers (used to transport/clean instruments) were dirty or clean.  Employee #4 stated, “I can’t.  I guess we need to have a different color to put the instruments in once they are clean.”‘

If that’s not creepy enough, the report on the Tidewater Women’s Health Clinic in Norfolk is reminiscent of Kermit Gosnell’s “house of horrors” discovered in Pennsylvania not long ago. The report describes, in eerie detail, the insides of a freezer in this abortion clinic:

The freezer which is used to store the collected conception material, had blood and un-bagged conception material frozen to the inner bottom surface.  An observation was conducted of the freezer kept in the clean utility room.  Staff #3 reported after inspection of the conception material, it was poured into plastic storage bags and the bags are stored in the freezer until the next weekly medical waste pick up.  The observation revealed that some of the plastic bags were open and had spilled their contents onto the bottom of the freezer.  Approximately three-fourths of the freezer’s bottom and shelf was covered with frozen blood and conception material.

The frozen blood of aborted babies and their remains are allowed to spill all over the freezer’s bottom, coating it in evidence of the free-for-all killing of the innocent that takes place at this disturbing clinic. For some people, the acceptance of abortion has become so engrained in their minds that they feel no need to clean up the spilled blood. It’s just part of the job, apparently.

However, as Victoria Cobb, president of The Family Foundation, states, the abortion industry simply cannot be trusted with anything any longer. Their greed for profit and willingness to kill any baby for any reason has driven them to put even the lives of women – those they claim to care about – at risk. Dirty instruments and the misuse of medications can easily kill women.

As Cobb succinctly puts it:

Perhaps the most frightening aspect of these reports isn’t the blatant disregard for basic health standards, but the fact that even with notice of inspection the operators of these facilities thought they were safe for women.  Apparently, if the abortion centers just scrub off the blood they can keep on operating. …

The same abortion industry representatives who claim that their centers are safe and healthy want the Board of Health to weaken the safety standards that were recommended by the Department of Health. … The conditions found in these reports existed as the very representatives of the industry that own and operate abortion centers were testifying to the Board that their facilities are safe.  With such disregard for the truth, for the well-being of women, how can its claims of safety be trusted?  No longer can the abortion industry claim that it puts women’s health ahead of its profits.

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  • PD

    so nine abortion clinics are clearly mismanaged and not up to the standards that they should be. pointing things like this out is a good thing so the problem can be fixed.

    but to use it as an argument to illegalize abortion? kind of non sequitur, don’t ya think?

    • Blah

      Nah, let’s make it illegal. As long as the back alley abortion has the same cleanliness as the clinic, how could you be let down? Abortions are disgusting either way, why do you want them to be legal?

  • Detroiter327

    While I obviously think a few of these violations are down right disgusting, we need to look at this within the context of the healthcare system as a whole. A large portion of hospitals and outpatient “ambulatory” centers violate these same standards on a regular basis. The Joint Commission (which accredits and evaluates hospitals etc) comes out with a list of its top violations each year. According to the JC many of the complaints you listed are really no big deal, and are common in the medical community as a whole. According to the JC 48% of outpatient clinics had problems with crediting and privileges of its staff, 31% had problems with safe storage of medication, 27% had problems with “infection control measures” (which boils down to the cleaning and disinfection of instruments), 17% had a problem with verifying staff qualifications, 16% had mislabeled medications. For most of these standards there is a higher level of non-compliance in hospitals! One quarter of hospitals fail to label medications properly, about one quarter have problems verifying staff credentials.
    Does this mean that people should be let off the hook? No. Does this mean that you should evaluate Planned Parenthoods with the same standards that you would your family care provider or local hospital? Absolutely. If there is “no excuse” for many of these complaints, and we wanted to use your yardstick on the healthcare as a whole, about 1/3 of the countries hospitals and outpatient facilities would be closed. If you think many of these issues are so egregious, check into your neighborhood hospital. There is a high chance they fail many of the same standards. PS. Those pesky fire regulations you keep attempting to use to shut down abortions clinics? 52% of hospitals arent up to code either. Maybe we should shut down 52% of the hospitals in the country too?
    - http://www.jointcommission.org/assets/1/18/jconline_Sept_28_111.PDF

    • Kristiburtonbrown

      In my opinion, then, we do need to tighten regulations on hospitals – especially where there are infection control measures. That’s pretty important. However, hospitals are incredibly necessary, so obviously they should stay open. Abortion clinics are not necessary and also have the complete ability to do things the right way – they certainly have plenty of money to hire enough staff people, train them, buy unexpired medicine, and other things if they truly cared about women. And we’re not even talking about not leaving blood and torn-apart babies in the freezer. That’s something hospitals sure don’t do. So while your point is taken, it still doesn’t eliminate the fact that there’s a major problem in the abortion industry when 9 clinics have 80 citations between them – some of which are, even in your own opinion, terribly disgusting. Those kind of clinics should absolutely be shut down.

      • PD

        “Those kind of clinics should absolutely be cleaned up.”
        FTFY

      • Detroiter327

        The point of my post is that abortion clinics legally and ethically have to be held to the same standards as any other outpatient/ambulatory center. We cannot enforce stricter standards on one part of the industry because a portion of Americans dislike it. More people have died from sedation dentistry (a non essential procedure) in the recent past than from getting an abortion. I don’t see entire movements running around screaming dentists don’t care about their patients and we need to stop the practice. Around 99,000 people die a year from an infection they develop in a hospital. The average large hospital has 106 HAI (hospital acquired infection) deaths a year, where are the protesters outside every hospital? Abortions clinics have the same ability to be up to compliance as any other ambulatory center or health care provider, and I have shown you how often a large portion of outpatient centers (and even more hospitals) violate these standards.
        To most people 80 citations between 9 clinics must seem like a lot, I just want the average reader to keep this in context there is nothing out of the ordinary or shocking about the majority of these violations. Many of these violations were on the administrative end (book keeping, records etc) and even some of the extreme ones were issues that occur (or have recently occurred) in your local hospital or outpatient clinic. Obviously I am excluding the fetal remains in the freezer, that is the main “disgusting” factor I was referring to. On a final note, I guess that last sentence should be rephrased to say there is a problem with a healthcare industry as a whole when these standards are not met on a regular basis.
        HAI stats from the CDC –
        http://www.austinpureair.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=96:hai-very-alarming-data&catid=23:other-new

      • Detroiter327

        What are the rest of citations? You are only listing a portion of them.

    • maureen

      If the JC classifies violations as “no big deal” I would say they need to re-think the term “violation.” In a hospital environment, a violation of health standards puts everyone, including the community, at risk. It is most certainly, a significant issue. Having worked in the healthcare industry, I can tell you that that attitude about violations is exactly the attitude which perpetuates them.

  • Anonymous

    “Conception materials.” A true euphemism. It’s funny how sometimes people have to go past the usual “terminated pregnancies” term, because you can’t put “pregnancies” in a freezer. So sad.

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