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Smoking Gun?

Health Inspectors Descend on Mission Valley Abortuary

By Maria Kennedy

How safe is the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic?

According to Rich Ackerman, an attorney with the United States Justice Foundation, representing former Planned Parenthood employee Megan Allen in a wrongful termination lawsuit, Planned Parenthood's own documents bolster his client's claims that the abortion chain is endangering lives. "Most of our evidence is coming exclusively from Planned Parenthood," he said in a telephone interview on February 7.

Among the documents obtained is a February 22, 2001 Statement of Deficiencies and Plan of Correction which came from a licensing visit by the San Diego County department of health services. It shows that on February 1, 2001, county employee Kay Weitzman toured the Planned Parenthood clinic in Mission Valley. During her inspection, Weitzman noted a nurse preparing syringes with medication to be used to later by the physician for "conscious sedation." The nurse would place the pre-filled syringes in a storage unit until the abortionist would arrive later that morning and put them in his fanny pack for use during the day. The county report revealed that the "procedures were carried out as early as 9:00 a.m. and as late as 4:00 p.m." When asked by the county inspector why the syringes were pre-filled, the nurse "stated that it was more efficient each morning to draw up the conscious sedation medications for the day." When the county pharmacist was consulted about the nurse mixing drugs in the same syringe, he issued the opinion that "Compounding [drugs] for future use and the proper labeling of drugs are within the scope of practice of the pharmacist, not the nurse."

Other violations found during this tour: patients received drugs without a doctor's order, and drug administration to patients was not noted in their medical records in several instances.

According to California state law, patients are entitled to privacy while recovering from surgery. The county inspector found that the Mission Valley did not provide adequate privacy for recovering patients. If a patient requested privacy, the staff would take the patient to recover "in one of the private consulting offices."

The inspector found that clinic employees did not have annual health examinations on file as required by state law. The report cites incomplete recovery room records and lack of records noting patient discharge times; surgical records did not always note surgical start and stop times. One patient's record showed that on January 11, 2001 four laminaria were inserted in the patient. The surgical record of the following day showed that five laminaria were removed. The report noted that "staff were unable to verify whether the recording error occurred on insertion or on removal."

The procedures followed in the recovery room were not consistent with proper discharge criteria, according to the report. In spite of the fact that medical personnel are required to ensure that the patient's vital signs are stable "as evidenced by two similar readings, 15 minutes" apart, Planned Parenthood employees did not follow the procedure in some instances. "The clinic failed to follow the policy and procedure for discharge criteria."

Ackerman notes that in some cases, Planned Parenthood did not secure informed-consent forms from patients. In one instance in the report, a patient "was seen in the clinic on 12/19/00 and received an abortion. Review of the informed consent form revealed that it was blank. The patient did not consent to any test, anesthesia or procedure."

A copy of Planned Parenthood's Annual Utilization Report of Primary Care Clinics for the year 2001 was also obtained through the lawsuit. According to the report, in 2001 the Mission Valley Planned Parenthood clinic performed 3101 abortions with 1.2 full-time physicians. The clinic did not employ any physician assistants but had 1.5 family nurse practitioners and two registered nurses. Ackerman said that was unacceptable. "Before I came to the United States Justice Foundation, I was in medical malpractice. I can tell you this is not within the standard of care. It also says why they have been cited for not having had enough staff across the state." When asked if the staff shortage was only at the Mission Valley clinic, Ackerman replied, "No, they got cited for this all over the place. We saw the same problem everywhere. What is the most amazing thing is that this clinic is the best funded. There is no excuse for having inadequate staffing."

In the interview Ackerman brought up the investigation done by Life Dynamics in Texas. "They have threatened to have us criminally prosecuted for bringing the Life Dynamics tapes. Even if we didn't use the tapes, their own evidence shows our case." In early 2002, Life Dynamics had a young woman call every Planned Parenthood clinic in the United States in order to get an abortion. In each instance, the young woman told the receptionist that her adult boyfriend had gotten her pregnant and that she was a minor. In an interview with this reporter, Planned Parenthood attorney James McElroy said that Life Dynamics engages in unethical ways of fighting abortion. "He's not objective" McElroy said of Crutcher. "He has an agenda. He has someone lie and say that she's something she's not. It's a receptionist that answers the phone, not a doctor or nurse. Her job is just to get the person into the clinic so they can get help".

"As I am sure you are aware, Penal Code 632 prohibits the secret recording of phone conversations ... subjects LDI (Life Dynamics International) to criminal penalties and statutory civil damages of $5,000 per phone call" McElroy wrote in a February 4 letter to Ackerman.

Mark Crutcher of Life Dynamics told this reporter that Planned Parenthood is scared by the tapes. "Have you ever heard of whistling past a grave," he asked in an interview. "Planned Parenthood knows they are in deep trouble, they have to threaten someone with criminal sanctions, these people know that they are running a pedophile protection racket".

In Riverside County, health inspectors also found numerous violations at Planned Parenthood's Rancho Mirage center. A review of the Statement of Deficiencies and Plan of Correction shows that some of the clinic personnel "did not have competency verifications. There was no documentation that qualified staff had been hired to work for the clinic." During a September 19, 2001 review of personnel records by health inspectors, the office manager of the clinic was interviewed about the personnel who were hired to work at the clinic. In spite of state law which requires employee records to be kept on site, the office manger "stated that all of the original paper work for each employee was kept in his or her parent office in another city and county. According to Planned Parenthood's Plan of Correction, employee records were kept at their San Diego headquarters. Planned Parenthood conceded that by November 5, 2001 copies of employee records would be kept at the clinics where employees were located.

Troy Newman of Operation Rescue West said that he was not surprised at what was found in the discovery documents. Newman routinely picketed the Mission Valley clinic during the early '90s. "They are giving very technical jobs to people who just have a high school diploma. We saw for years that Planned Parenthood hired the shoddiest abortionists and they went through them like dime-store candy. There were always allegations against them, but now Rich has the goods on them" he said of Planned Parenthood.

Ackerman said that he is confident of his case against Planned Parenthood.

"When asked what this meant for Planned Parenthood's future, Ackerman replied. "With any luck, this will mean an injunction in order to correct the violations. Given their own woeful history of problems, we might shut them down." Ackerman noted that he has "two feet of their own evidence" that shows how Planned Parenthood has a twenty-year history of ignoring state laws governing medical facilities and endangers women's' lives. They are in our sights and their own evidence is going to pull the trigger. It's going to come to an end," he concluded.

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