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No oversight for Delaware abortion clinics
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Issue
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| Contributor | Scott³ |
| Last Edited | Scott³ Jan 31, 2011 07:11pm |
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| Category | News |
| Author | SEAN O'SULLIVAN and MIKE CHALMERS |
| Media | Newspaper - Wilmington (DE) News Journal |
| News Date | Monday, January 31, 2011 01:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | "The owner of Atlantic Women's Medical Services in Delaware -- who employed the West Philadelphia abortion doctor charged with killing infants -- also owns an abortion clinic in Louisiana that was cited for a list of health and safety violations in 2009.
A 261-page grand jury report on that doctor, Kermit Gosnell, portrayed his Women's Medical Society clinic in Philadelphia as unsanitary and unprofessional, with blood-stained furniture, substandard equipment and untrained staff.
Yet, despite trouble at those two abortion clinics, Delaware regulators cannot say if Atlantic Women's Medical Services in Wilmington -- where Gosnell worked at least one day a week for a number of years -- has similar health and safety deficiencies.
Abortion providers in Delaware are not subject to the kind of routine sanitary and safety inspections required at restaurants, beauty salons and tattoo parlors. Abortion clinics don't even fall under the state's definition of medical facilities that require routine inspections, like free-standing surgery centers, according to the Delaware Division of Public Health.
And the state's Division of Professional Regulation only investigates complaints against doctors, "not facilities," said Division Director James Collins.
Mark A. Meister Sr., executive director of the Medical Society of Delaware, said he did not know of any state agency that regulates abortion clinics or similar medical facilities in Delaware, which he conceded was "hard to believe."
"You are asking an excellent question," he said. "The answer may be, at this point in time, there is no regulatory authority over a clinic or organization like that." |
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