The Wolf in Doctor’s Clothing

Are departmental bureaucrats and shady
abortionists endangering Louisiana women?

By Kendra R. Chamberlain
Published September 7, 2011


Editor’s Note: The Delta Clinic refused to comment on this story. Neither Planned Parenthood nor the Center for Reproductive Rights returned requests for comment.

The Delta Clinic of Baton Rouge gained sensational notoriety in 1999, when WAFB news reporter Julie Baxter did a series of stories on the sub-par conditions of the clinic, and the inadequate staff. What ensued was a string of political posturing and bureaucratic maneuvering that led to Gov. Mike Foster declaring a public health emergency, and ordering the state Department of Health and Hospitals to inspect all abortion clinics in Louisiana.

A decade later, the Delta clinic is still operating, and despite calls from activists, politicians, and former patients of the clinic, the DHH insists it has no reason to shut down the clinic.

The Delta Clinic’s dark days

The American Holocaust Memorial is housed in an
older location of the Delta Clinic. (Credit: David S. Lewis)


As news of physician Kermit Gosnell’s “House of Horrors” broke in January of this year, some Baton Rouge residents might have noticed a familiar name in the headlines. When Gosnell was arrested and charged with eight counts of murder for performing live birth abortions, eight other suspects were also arrested, including one Eileen O’Neill.

Formerly known as Eileen White, O’Neill had been a physician for the Delta Clinic in the 1990s, and garnered heavy scrutiny in the WAFB reports because she wasn’t a licensed physician – though she did go to medical school. She was dismissed from LSU’s med school in 1998, while she was performing abortions at the Delta Clinic. In the Gosnell case, O’Neill faces, among other charges, theft by deception for posing as a doctor.

It was then that state government authorities began scrambling to figure out who was responsible for inspecting and regulating abortion clinics in the state. The Office of Public Health said its hands were tied due to a technicality in licensing these types of outpatient centers. The Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners, though able to revoke physician licenses, was not able to shut down the clinics. It appears that the Delta Clinic, along with all the other clinics in the state, had slipped through the bureaucratic cracks of regulation.

Prior to the WAFB exposé, the Delta Clinic had suffered a world of trouble. In 1994, the federal government filed a lawsuit against the clinic for dispensing narcotics illegally; when the clinic didn’t pay the fine, the building was put up for sale in an auction.

The St. Mary and St. Joseph Family Memorial Foundation, an anti-abortion group, purchased the building and now runs the American Holocaust Memorial there. Richard Mahoney, a staunch anti-abortionist and activist, seems to be the one-man show behind the memorial, which offers exclusive tours of the clinic – supposedly set up just as the Delta Clinic had been, with original equipment and blood stains. He also spends a few mornings a week praying outside the Delta Clinic.

Mahoney has dedicated a large part of his life to fighting abortion, and is well known by both the BRPD and the Department of Health and Hospitals for his activism and opposition to the Delta Clinic.

In a document entitled “Chronological History of the Delta Clinic of Baton Rouge,” Mahoney has compiled a list of violations for which the Delta Clinic has been cited. It reads like an exercise in the use of the phrase ‘failure of compliance.’

Mahoney, along with well known Christian attorney Mike Johnson – who was recently appointed to the Louisiana Commission on Marriage and Family by Gov. Bobby Jindal – alleges that a DHH ‘findings’ report from 2009 included a long list of violations at the Delta Clinic, including failure to report carnal knowledge of a minor, failure to provide pre-abortion counseling, failure to maintain confidentiality of patient records, failure to gather and report complete information to the Office of Pubic Health, failure to ensure sterilization of syringes and intravenous injections, failure to de-contaminate equipment, failure to properly label, measure, and monitor does of narcotics, failure to properly store, handle, and distribute intravenous medications, and failure to monitor and document cardio-pulmonary status.

The department didn’t confirm whether these alleged findings were an accurate reflection of the DHH records. But when asked why the Delta Clinic has never been shut down, Stephen Russo, Deputy Counsel for the DHH, answered that the Department doesn’t have any reason to.

“We had a licensing survey that we went out on in December of 2009, where we had a quite lengthy deficiency report,” Russo said. “We didn’t see anything in that report that would have jeopardized health or safety of women or put them in imminent danger.”

The inspection resulted in a fine for the Delta Clinic, and a follow-up a few months later.

“We found that they had corrected and cleared the deficiencies that we found in that December survey,” Russo said, meaning the Delta Clinic has received a clean bill of health from the DHH, so to speak.

Determining imminent danger

Operation Rescue is a Christian activist organization that actively seeks the closure of abortion facilities around the country. In May of 2011, Operation Rescue filed a complaint with the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners against Mary Frances Gardner, a physician at the Delta Clinic, on behalf of an anonymous woman who received an abortion there in 2009. According to Operation Rescue, the patient was forced to undergo a hysterectomy, from an outside facility, as a result of her procedure at the Delta Clinic. However, the patient neither filed a complaint with the clinic nor did so with DHH.

“This extra knowledge was brought to our attention by Operation Rescue, and we dealt with it as a complaint as best we could,” Russo said of the incident. “When you get something that supposedly happened in 2009 in 2011, we did our best to try and figure out the veracity of the complaints and processed it pursuant to our protocols.”

Russo said that because there was no record of the complaint in 2009, the DHH had no proof of anything the patient had claimed happened. “And of course we processed that and did a complaint as best we can for something that’s…for lack of a better word, stale,” Russo said.

“It was so old that there was not enough information we could gather at the time to substantiate any or most of what was in the letter,” agreed LaVon Raymond Johnson, deputy general counsel of the DHH. “We did a complaint survey at the time; we didn’t substantiate anything, so for all intents and purposes the clinic is still in compliance with the regulations and has not been cited for any other deficiencies.”

The 2009 incident – if it is true – is one of many that Mahoney has compiled. He and his lawyers allege there have been multiple injuries at the clinic; including incidents in June 1994, one in October of 1996, April of 1999, July of 1999, January of 2002, and January of 2010. When all of these stories are laid out side by side, it’s hard to understand why, exactly, the DHH is allowing the Delta Clinic to continue to operate.

Many people are wondering the same thing. In January of 2011, Christopher Ferrara, president of the American Catholic Lawyers Association, released a statement indicating the association is interested in filing a lawsuit against the DHH if the clinic is not shut down.

The Department responded with a statement indicating they have done everything in their powers to investigate allegations regarding the clinic.

“We have met with the people filing the initial complaints. We have not received additional complaints since March of 2010, and we have not received any requests for additional meetings from anyone on this topic,” the statement reads.

A month later, Sen. David Vitter sent a letter to Secretary Bruce Greenstein.

“I am writing to seek your immediate and personal involvement in investigating and taking all appropriate enforcement action against the abortion facility known as the Delta Clinic in Baton Rouge, Louisiana,” the letter states. “Recent media reports indicate that this abortion clinic has a record of grievances and possible serious violations more than sufficient to warrant immediate action...”

Russo said the department conducted what he called a “desk review,” a meeting in which the most recent complaint was discussed. He reiterated that there wasn’t enough information to warrant the closure of the clinic.

“So, as bad of a picture as the affidavit may have tried to paint, there was nothing therein that we could see that Delta really did anything wrong or out of compliance with our licensing regulations,” Russo said.

The new law and “zero tolerance” policies

Last year, Sen. Fred Mills successfully guided a piece of legislation to law that has given the DHH the authority to immediately shut down any abortion clinic, for any violation, without notice. Previous to this legislation, an abortion clinic had the ability to continue operations until the legal matter had been settled.

“We have rules and regulations, and if you don’t comply, much like any other clinic, we have a statute that will allow us to revoke licensure. It’s much the same as any other provider,” Russo said. “The normal process for normal licensure, like for a hospital or nursing home – we go in, we seek to revoke a license, they can file a ‘suspensive appeal,’ meaning that they can stay open pending the results of any hearing that they seek. For abortion clinics and a couple other facility types, we have special powers to where if imminent health and safety of recipients [is jeopardized], we can go in and immediately shut down a clinic or provider and we don’t have to give them a suspensive appeal.”

Perhaps emboldened with this new authority, the DHH attempted to shut down two abortion clinics within the state.

The first item on the DHH agenda was the Hope Medical Group for Women, an abortion clinic located in Shreveport. In September of 2010, the DHH faxed over a letter notifying the clinic of immediate suspension. Citing a “recent investigation,” the DHH listed a number of violations witnessed at Hope Medical, including failure to properly monitor vital signs of patients, failure to have proper procedures for administering anesthesia, and failure to have trained professionals perform medical procedures associated with anesthesia.

“When we see this level of egregious conduct at a facility, it is incumbent on us to take steps necessary to protect our residents,” said DHH Interim Secretary Anthony Keck in a news release.

But the authority proved to be more vulnerable than perhaps even the drafters of the law predicted. A few days later, the activist organization Center for Reproductive Rights filed a lawsuit claiming the DHH was acting in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner in shutting down the clinic. Judge Michael Caldwell of the 19th Circuit Court, here in Baton Rouge, issued a preliminary injunction, which barred the DHH from enforcing the immediate suspension, and allowed Hope Medical to continue to operate.

A similar series of events occurred earlier this year, when the DHH moved to close down the New Orleans’ Gentilly Medical Clinic for Women. In May of 2011, Sec. Greenstein issued a revocation of license to the clinic, citing two specific and repeated violations: failure to monitor a patient in recovery, and failure to provide nursing services that meet the needs of the patients. In June, another Baton Rouge Judge granted a temporary restraining order against the suspension. A week later, Judge Kay Bates held a formal hearing and extended the restraining order, ordering the DHH to conduct a follow-up survey on the clinic.

These two attempts demonstrate that even with the new law in place, it seems that the DHH’s ability to shut down danger abortion clinics is still more talk than walk.

“Well, the best answer I can seriously give you is that’s how the statute was set up,” Russo explained, “...for the judge to come in and determine whether or not he believes the secretary had proper grounds to immediately suspend [the license].”

Russo said the department believes patients of these two clinics are in imminent danger, due to a lack of nursing services provided.

“...[T]hat was something surely in his [Sec. Greenstein’s] mind and my mind [that] would put women in threat of immediate harm and jeopardy,” Russo said. “The judge, looking at it, the best thing I can say – he didn’t think it did.”

What remains unanswered, though, is why the DHH has not pursued closing the Delta Clinic, in light of its rather off-putting history and record. The most significant offense, according to Russo: the DHH had cited the Delta Clinic for pre-filling the Report of Induced Termination of Pregnancy forms required by the state. The clinic had been printing the forms with markings indicating that no complications with any abortions ever occurred.

“It’s documentation, which we take serious, don’t get me wrong,” Russo said. “But normally, documentation, especially if it’s not a repeat deficiency, is not something that we’d go to the lengths of revoking a license for.”

In other words, the Department of Health and Hospitals has no impetus to shut down the Delta Clinic.

“We can only go out, one – in response to complaints, or two – going out once a year for licensing,” Russo said. “So if we don’t get a complaint and we catch them on a good day to where we don’t find anything, technically they’re in compliance.”

Source: http://digbatonrouge.com/article/the-wolf-in-doctor-s-clothing-2904/