State wants to revoke abortion clinic license

The Indiana State Department of Health, Division of Acute Care, has filed a complaint to have the Women's Pavilion's abortion clinic license revoked.

The facility was inspected in October 29 and several deficiencies were cited. The clinic was required to submit a plan of correction for each deficiency cited in the report.

The paperwork for the plan of correction was required to be submitted within 10 days of their notice they were not compliant with state rules.

The court documents also cite the following deficiencies as cited in the inspection report:

• The clinic also failed to provide patient care services by a qualified person during one or more recovery room periods. According to the October review, the state cited 15 incidents where patients in recovery were left with lab personnel.
• The clinic failed to ensure patients were monitored by qualified personnel, other than the physician performing the procedure, while using conscious sedation. The October inspection cites lack of documentation for patient assessment of verbal responses, monitoring respiration, cardiovascular and neurological effects of sedation drugs. These were only assessed on the recovery room record.
• The clinic failed to implement written policies and procedures for abortion services according to appropriate standards of medical and patient care.
• The clinic failed to present a valid Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments certificate, ensuring lab services provided to patients are performed by a facility with the certificate.
• The clinic failed to ensure annual competency assessments were performed for nursing and other clinic personnel performing lab testing. The facility also failed to maintain these records in employee files.
• The clinic failed to provide drugs and biological material in a safe and effective manner in accordance with accepted professional practice related to the handling and storing of expired medications and patient care supplies. During the October inspection, several bags of lactated ringers IV solution were expired.

During the October review, the facility did not have proper documentation of physical exams or vaccination records for four employees. Several employee files did not contain information as to the CPR certification of staff members.

In addition, some of the doors are not wheelchair accessible. The medical director told inspectors, “We are not wheelchair accessible. We have a right not to accept each and every patient. If we can't provide services to some individuals, we can refer them elsewhere.”

The facility also did not have a written emergency plan for evacuating the patients. When asked how an evacuation was to be conducted the medical director pointed to his head and said “It's all up here.”

The plan of correction the facility was required to provide had to list how the clinic would correct the deficiency, how they would prevent the deficiency from recurring, and when the deficiency would be corrected if it had not been yet.