[Another abortion mill has closed due to health and safety concerns. We believe that if every abortion mill was regularly inspected, very, very few would be allowed to remain open. It should be a wake up call to women considering abortion that these death centers would continue to operate under conditions "posing immediate and serious risk of harm to patients." That speaks volumes about their phony concern for women. ~OR Staff]
N.J. failed to inspect abortion clinic
Closed Atlantic City facility was years overdue for a state review
By Michael Clark, Staff Writer
Published: Friday, June 29, 2007
ATLANTIC CITY — The state’s inspection of a city abortion clinic last week was the facility’s first in six years, despite the state health department’s requirement to conduct inspections once every other year.
The Alternatives abortion clinic on Pacific Avenue, which was last inspected in 2001, was shut down a week ago after officials responded to a complaint concerning change-of-ownership issues. Although that complaint was unfounded, inspectors found several violations “posing immediate and serious risk of harm to patients,” according to a letter obtained Thursday by The Press from the state to the clinic’s medical director, Dr. Alan Kline.
Although the complete report has not been released by the health department, the letter lists some of the violations, including the absence of hot water for more than a year, a scrub sink for sterilization, a mechanical ventilator and the anti-hyperthermia drug Dantrium.
Tom Slater, a spokesman for the state Department of Health and Human Services, acknowledged that the agency has been unable to keep up with its inspections because of a shortage of staff and the continued growth of abortion clinics throughout New Jersey. The closest clinic to Alternatives is in Cherry Hill, Camden County.
“We do always respond quickly to any complaints we get,” Slater said in the agency’s defense. “You saw in this case how quickly we responded.”
But Slater later confirmed that the complaint had been filed June 8, two weeks before the agency began its inspection.
“With a limited staff that was fairly quick,” he said.
The department’s staff shortage reflects a national trend of a shrinking public health work force. That trend, coupled with the 70 percent growth in acute-care facilities the agency is required to inspect, hamstrings the state from living up to its standards.
“That’s a poor excuse,” said Marie Tasy, executive director of New Jersey Right to Life, an anti-abortion group. “They need to do something to inform the women that frequented this clinic. Clearly there are grounds for a class-action lawsuit against an agency that has been derelict in its duty to protect the public’s health.”
Despite the state’s failure to inspect the facility regularly, it continued to charge Alternatives yearly inspection fees of $750, which the clinic paid. Slater said the fees are not only for inspections, but for the state’s potential response to complaints and costs for maintaining the facility’s licensure. Additionally, the clinic is being charged $2,500 each day the violations are not corrected.
The state’s findings during its 2001 inspection of the clinic included violations regarding its use of outdated anesthesia machines and minor sanitary issues with chipped paint, stained ceiling tile and rusty equipment and furniture.
The agency’s failure to inspect at Alternatives is not its first.
Metropolitan Medical Associates in Englewood went five years without a state inspection before a complaint from a Newark hospital concerning a badly hemorrhaging patient forced the state to inspect the clinic. In February it was closed for several violations. State officials allowed the clinic to be reopened at the end of March after approving the facility’s corrective action plan.
Now this is really appalling: A medical facility doing SURGICAL PROCEDURES WITHOUT HOT WATER for OVER a YEAR ?????????????
Oops…I forgot…abortion is now “safe” as well as legal.
Nevermind….
where is the OUTRAGE from NOW and all those die-hard feminists that women were having SURGERY in conditions like this?
If they found no hot water in a vet’s office…PETA would be out there protesting. but for women to be put in danger like this…where is the outrage? I share your sarcasm, Mike. abortion is def. “safe” and legal!!!!!!
Iwish that once, just ONCE, some die-hard feminist/pro abort would make a statement regarding how “they” feel about these clinics that get shut down and the reasons for it.
Where is Kate Michaelman when we WANT to hear from her?????
They’d better keep the place closed. They failed to do so with the other one where that young woman almost DIED (they reopened it after it supposedly got back to code or whatever).
When this happens, it needs to send a message to people: abortion is WRONG and Dangerous.
The thing I don’t understand, (well, one of many things, actually…) is HOW do women who have had abortions in these places, feel when they see the less than clean and sterile conditions that exist there?
Are they THAT desperate that they will allow themselves to have an invasive surgical procedure of this nature under such sub-standard conditions that they just overlook the conditions just to be “done with it”? If so, then this is proof that these clinics are just as bad as the clandestine abortuaries of pre -Roe USA.
IF, these radical feminists are so hell bent on abortion access for women, and they claim it is SO safe, WHERE ARE THEY when the news gets out that exposes the realities of what goes on in these UNREGULATED, UNSANITARY, and FILTHY “clinics ????????? You would think that given their love of “choice” and their “concern” for women, that THEY THEMSELVES would be out “policing” these places and holding them to the utmost standards.
Their movement and everything they stand for and profess to believe, goes right down the toilet when their absence is so CONSPICUOUS in these situations. All of which is irrefutable PROOF that they DO NOT care about women at all, or what happens to their “sisters” at these clinics.
It’s like they are screaming out loud, “Abortion is your right. It is safe and legal. Go and abort your babies….but don’t expect US to do a damn thing for you when it gets ugly. It’s every woman for herself”.
Some loyalty and support, huh?
NOT !!!!
ya know, I have gone into fast food chains and decided NOT TO EAT A BURGER there because I was so skeeved. and yet, to once again agree with Mike, these women go into these clinics and see the filfth and the unprofessional staffs and yet succumb to SURGERY!!!! these clinics are places you wouldn’t even want to eat a sandwich in! I just don’t get it, and it makes me angry that women don’t DEMAND something BETTER than abortion.
To Mike & Sarah:
Mike writes:
“The thing I don’t understand… is HOW do women who have had abortions in these places, feel when they see the less than clean and sterile conditions that exist there?…Are they THAT desperate that they will allow themselves to have an invasive surgical procedure of this nature under such sub-standard conditions that they just overlook the conditions just to be “done with it”?”
–Some thoughts:
1. As to whether they are that desperate, I think the answer may be less “desperation,” (which implies critical NEED) as opposed to really strong desire (which is just that, i.e., WANT vs. NEED. I think some women are just really, really in one huge hurry to not be pregnant anymore, for a whole host of reasons, are they’ll do anything to end the pregnancy.
2. I’m also not sure some women even know in advance that they’re having “invasive surgery.” Many are probably fed lies that abortion is a simple, painless procedure. When you look in the yellow pages & see ads for clincs advertising abortions “awake or asleep,” see pictures of attractive young thoughtful-looking women in these ads, etc., it’s easy to miss what you’re going to be doing when you walk in.
3. I have 2 good friends who are lawyers (true). One works at a big corporate firm with marble floors, fancy office, etc. One works at a small firm in a messy, run-down hole-in-the-wall office in a tough section of a city not too far away. Although I can’t necessarily say this across the board, I must wonder: Is the firm with the marble floors more successful because it has better lawyers? I conclude it does. Each has done legal work for me wherein I saw different results. The “better” work was done by the “better” firm. Being good at what you do is hard to hide. My point is this: Leaving aside things like “doctors without borders,” or those who operate free clinics, etc., and speaking strictly about those who perform abortions — or real medicine — for pecuniary gain, can you tell something about the quality of the services merely by the surroundings? I’d say: yes, to at least some extent, simply because society is market-driven. Does that in turn reflect the competence of the survice providers? Again, I think so, for the same reason. All of us would rather patronize “clean” businesses. Most of us care enough to try & make our own surroundings attractive — home or workplace. There are evil neurosurgeons, I’m sure. But abortion is a dirty business, and I think it attracts a “dirty” crowd. I would not be shocked to find that abortionists are often not the cream of the crop — in many respects — from their respective classes at medical school.
Good points, Frank.
Considering that this is the year 2007, and that we don’t exactly have a population of largely uneducated people, it is pretty hard (for me) to swallow the concept that there are THAT MANY women out there that don’t know what is going on with their anatomy when they are pregnant…and that so many of them claim to be clueless as to what is involved in the abortion process.
We don’t live in a “backward country” as far as medical technology is concerned.
Granted, the pro-abortion “movement” of our society has done a superb job of duping women (and MEN as well ) into believing their lies about fetal development and the truth about what they so valiantly deem to be a “right”…to terminate the lives of the unborn under any circumstances, at any time, for any reason, and they are fighting tooth and nail to ensure that this “right” remain available….and that “personhood” isn’t even a factor in regard to the “uterine contents”, “tissue” ad nauseum.
I find it insulting to the intelligence of women in general that the pro-choice, pro-abortion advocates have been successful in their crusade to disregard the validity of human life…and that women are “buying it”. If I were a woman, I would be IRATE that so many of my “sisters” are being taken for fools, and that their feminist “leaders” do NOTHING to educate them about the numerous downsides of the abortion issue as far as the risks, complications, and REALITIES of the abortion industry.
It is a total slap in the face to women when their die-hard feminist leaders are nowhere to be found when complications are exposed, when women die from abortion, and they are left alone and unsupported by their so called “concerned sisters”…not to mention the lack of regulation of clinics and the levels of “medical competency” and education that are rampant in the industry when things go sour.
I am incredulous that such a enormous number of women have stood by and allowed the deception to continue and the myths perpetuated by the pro choice advocates.