About ten miles north of downtown Chicago lies Lincolnwood, a small village with a horrendous tale. In May, 2009, 18-year-old Antonesha Ross died after complications from an abortion at Larisa Rozansky’s Women’s Aid Clinic.
Shortly after her first trimester abortion, Antonesha began coughing up fluid and blood and had difficulty breathing. Clinic staff failed to provide CPR, and two hours after her abortion, the young mother was declared dead in a hospital emergency room.
Antonesha’s estate was awarded $555,500 in a malpractice settlement, and both the Women’s Aid Clinic and Lawrence J. Hill, the certified registered nurse anesthetist who had given anesthesia to Antonesha, had to pay.
For Hill, this was the third abortion death he had taken part in. A fourth woman still remains in an “irreversible coma.”
Antonesha Ross (from her Facebook profile)
When Antonesha had first shown up at the Women’s Aid Clinic, it was discovered that she was presenting signs of a nasty infection. She was told to go see a family doctor before she could return for an abortion. A few days later, the 18-year-old was back, and the clinic never documented whether she was examined again or asked if she had followed through with earlier instructions.
Instead, a deadly five-minute-abortion was performed. Both Antonesha and her preborn baby would pay the price of the clinic’s negligence and malpractice.
While Antonesha’s tale alone is horrific, there’s sadly much more to the Women’s Aid Clinic saga. It took years after her death before the state of Illinois became appropriately involved and fined the clinic for appalling violations.
Due to Illinois’ lack of regular inspection requirements, Rozansky’s clinic had skated by with dangerous and filthy conditions for years. And, reminiscent of Pennsylvania’s Gosnell nightmare, a woman – along with her innocent preborn child – had paid the ultimate price for the clinic’s lack of health and safety.
All too often, when monetary profits and death are exalted over human life, this is exactly what happens.
The Chicago Tribune reports:
Among other findings, the clinic didn’t have a registered nurse supervising patient care, wasn’t properly tracking narcotics and sedatives, and had failed to ensure “a sanitary facility with all equipment in good working order,” the inspector’s report stated.
In an operating room that hadn’t been used for two days, five insulin syringes were found outside of their protective packaging. The anesthesia cart contained about 28 vials of expired medication, including about 20 vials that had expired more than a year earlier.
The inspector found medications and frozen dinners stored in a biohazard refrigerator that also contained fetal or placental tissue, according to the report, and a recovery room technician was observed taking a paper towel from the garbage and using it to cover a tray used to serve food to patients.
Additional violations were uncovered in regard to the clinic’s treatment – or lack of treatment – of Antonesha Ross. A fine of $36,000 was imposed for the violations. Though paltry, it sent a message.
The message, however, has so far been shrugged off by clinic owner Larisa Rozansky. Mere weeks after the fine was set, she closed up shop at the Women’s Aid Clinic and opened a “new” abortion clinic: the Women’s Aid Center. Several assets from the old clinic were given to the new, and for a time, it even operated at the same location.
And yet, Rozansky declared bankruptcy, claiming that the clinic was unable to pay the fine. To this day, she continues to operate her new abortion clinic, while Illinois’ attorney general attempts to collect the fine.
