Planned Parenthood under state investigation: botched abortions, employees say unsafe/unsterile, OSHA violations

Delaware investigates conduct of staff at Planned Parenthood
State investigating Planned Parenthood April 17 ,2013

The state Division of Professional Regulation has launched a new investigation into the conduct of several licensed medical professionals at Planned Parenthood of Delaware, the agency’s director confirmed Tuesday. It is the most recent of several inquiries into practices at the state’s largest abortion provider.

Planned Parenthood officials say they have made recent personnel changes and “do not tolerate employees who fail to meet our standards.”

They say they welcome the review.

“In the last several days several state health agencies have conducted inspections,” Planned Parenthood Delaware CEO Ruth Lytle-Barnaby said in a written statement Tuesday evening. “PPDE is committed to high quality healthcare, we welcome oversight in the interest of ensuring safety and wellness, and we take swift action when any of our operations do not meet the highest standards.”

Surgical abortions have been halted for now at the Wilmington and Dover offices, Lytle-Barnaby said, but outpatient medical abortions continue at both sites. Training for new staff is under way, she said.

Investigators were unable to substantiate complaints made against Planned Parenthood last fall, according to James Collins, director of the Division of Professional Regulation, but more recent complaints from several sources triggered the new inquiry.

In addition to the regulatory review, Planned Parenthood is under investigation by the state Division of Public Health, according to Jill Fredel, spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Social Services. That process will include an examination of equipment, medications, cleanliness, whether materials used were past their expiration date and related conditions.

Last month, Planned Parenthood paid a $3,060 fine – reduced from $5,100 – in an informal settlement with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration for two violations related to blood-borne pathogens. One violation was related to employee training, another – considered serious – was related to employee exposure to contaminated needles.

In a post on the provider’s website, Lytle-Barnaby said she and her staff had conducted a review of patient services and had called on medical experts from the national office to advise them, too.

“I determined that we need to take immediate steps to assure our patients of our high-quality care, including enacting immediate personnel changes,” Lytle-Barnaby wrote. “We do not tolerate employees that fail to meet our standards for patient care and services. … Any employee who does not live up to our standards of patient care will be terminated.”
Amelia Auner, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Delaware, confirmed Tuesday that Dr. Timothy Liveright, who performed abortions in Wilmington, and Gloria Johnson, who was vice president of medical services, no longer are employed by the organization. It was not clear if their departures were related to the recent investigations. Efforts to reach Liveright and Johnson on Tuesday were unsuccessful.

At least two former employees of Planned Parenthood Delaware – both registered nurses – have publicly called for investigations into the operation’s practices.

“What I believe should happen is that Planned Parenthood should no longer be self-regulated,” said Joyce Vasikonis, a Dover nurse who also worked at the Wilmington site. Vasikonis was interim surgical services manager when she resigned last August.

Vasikonis describes herself as “radically pro-abortion,” but said she could not continue to work under the conditions she saw.

“I feel like a woman has a right to abortion for whatever reason she chooses,” she said. “But she should know all of her options and understand what she is consenting to and she should have a safe procedure. That was not what was happening there. It got to the point where I could not stand it another day. I said, ‘I am going to lose my license if I stay here.’ ”

Jayne Mitchell-Werbrich of Newark could not bear the conditions, either. She worked part time for about three months, kept copious notes, pressed for reforms and resigned last August.

“I cannot continue to work in such an unsafe, unhealthy and hostile environment,” she wrote in her resignation email.

Abortion protesters who picketed the Wilmington facility said last month they assisted a patient there after a botched abortion that forced her to seek emergency hospital treatment.

That patient has retained Colorado-based attorney Michael Norton, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, which promotes religious liberty and First Amendment protections.

“We try to make sure abortion providers are held to the same standard as regular medical practices are,” Norton said.

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Planned Parenthood of Baltimore in Wilmington has announced that abortion procedures are on hold and a local news station has announced that the tax funded clinic is under investigation by the state after two staffers say the clinic was not sterile and unsafe. The story broke last night. At least five Planned Parenthood patients have been rushed to the ER. In addition, one doctor and two nurses have “mysteriously left” as well, according to reports.

According to the Planned Parenthood website, surgical abortions will be referred to “another provider” but chemical abortions will still be provided:

Werbrich alleges conditions inside the facility were unsanitary. “He didn’t wear gloves,” said Werbrich.

Who is HE?? We do not know for sure but According to the most recent reports :

Amelia Auner, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Delaware, confirmed Tuesday that Dr. Timothy Liveright, who performed abortions in Wilmington, and Gloria Johnson, who was vice president of medical services, no longer are employed by the organization. It was not clear if their departures were related to the recent investigations. Efforts to reach Liveright and Johnson on Tuesday were unsuccessful.

Past records indicate the medical director for Planned Parenthood is Eric Schaff:

Medical Director Eric Schaff took home $100,000 in 2006 ( here)

In 1997, Dr. Schaff was trained by Planned Parenthood of New York City in surgical abortion. “I felt inadequate because I had to rely on other physicians for medication abortion complications. Since I learned these surgical skills, I feel empowered as a clinician because I can provide complete reproductive healthcare.”

Apparently- this Planned Parenthood cannot find experienced abortionists, they have to request medical students !!

And in 2006, a woman sued Planned Parenthood after an abortion they performed landed her in the hospital with an ectopic pregnancy. The doctor on record at that time was GAILYN B. THOMAS, M.D Read here.

Another former employee, Joyce Vasikonis told Action News, “They were using instruments on patients that were not sterile.” The former nurses claim that a rush to get patients in and out left operating tables soiled and unclean.

Werbrich said “It’s not washed down, it’s not even cleaned off. It has bloody drainage on it.”

“They could be at risk of getting hepatitis, even AIDS,” added Vasikonis. Both of these nurses said, they quit to protect their own medical licenses, stunned by what they called a meat-market style of assembly-line abortions.

Vasikonis said, “I felt I could be held liable if a patient was harmed.”

“Planned Parenthood needs to close its doors, it’s needs to be cleaned up, the staff needs to be trained, said Werbrich.”

According to the news station, Since January 4th, five patients allegedly have been rushed from the facility to the emergency room, again placing the clinic in the spotlight.

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Pro-lifers have documented several of those incidents:

In February of 2013, a woman was taken by stretcher out the back of Planned Parenthood in Wilmington to a local emergency medical center following a botched abortion. She was loaded into a St. Francis Hospital ambulance, according to Rae Stabosz of Newark, Delaware…It was the third such event witnessed by pro-lifers in a two-year period.

Operation Rescue has published newly obtained 911 recordings of two medical emergencies at Planned Parenthood in Wilmington, Delaware, which took place on February 8, and 16, 2013.

In both cases, patients were transported to a local hospital with abortion complications that could not be managed by abortionists and nurses who attended the women at the clinic.

The 911 recordings were obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests made by a participant in a local 40 Days for Life campaign with the assistance of Operation Rescue. While prayer vigil participants were present for the incident on the 16th, they were unaware that another medical emergency had taken place at that same Planned Parenthood abortion clinic just 8 days earlier until they received the open records files.

“The 911 recordings are important because they expose the inconvenient truth that abortion isn’t as safe as the abortion cartel would have you believe,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue and Pro-Life Nation. “Women are maimed and killed by shoddy abortionists on a regular basis, but it is covered up by the clinics, the abortion lobby, and the media. Public records tear way the curtains of secrecy that enables abortionists to abuse women. This helps us warn the public and hold abortionists accountable for their actions.”

Patient 1 –February 8, 2013

February 8, 2013, Planned Parenthood called 911 at 1:30 p.m. to ask for assistance for a patient that was unconscious and struggling to breathe. Despite the presence of two physicians and three nurses, her condition still required emergency assistance from paramedics.

The caller indicated that they were using an emergency non rebreather on the patient, which is a mask with a flat bag that used in emergency situations to provide oxygen to the patient.

However, the non rebreather seemed inadequate, because the caller told the dispatcher that they were “getting ready to bag” the patient. “Bagging” a patient is done with a hand-held device used to provide positive pressure ventilation to a patient who is not breathing or who is breathing inadequately. It is an emergency resuscitative measure.

Paramedics and an ambulance were dispatched to the scene. The outcome of this patient’s medical emergency is unknown.

Patient 2 – February 16, 2013

A second medical emergency at Planned Parenthood in Wilmington, which was witnessed by pro-life activists, took place on February 16. Video was taken by Rae Stabosz during a 40 Days for Life prayer vigil that shows a woman on a gurney with a possible IV bag containing plasma or other blood products.

The partially-redacted 911 recording confirmed that the patient suffered heavy bleeding. The Planned Parenthood employee that placed the call opted for response by paramedics instead of a simple ambulance transfer, indicating that the patient needed emergency care.

She was rushed to St. Francis Hospital for emergency treatment.

These incidents comprise the third and fourth medical emergencies observed or documented by prayer vigil participants at Planned Parenthood in Wilmington over a two-year period.

“We wonder – how often does it happen when we are not there?” asked Stabosz.

In March of 2013 a woman told protesters her daughter was bleeding from an incomplete abortion which Planned Parenthood had performed on her days earlier was taken to the emergency room. Then, at approximately 1:00PM witnesses documented an ambulance arriving at the same Planned Parenthood, and removing another patient.

Pro-Abort Woman Attacks

According to Operation Rescue, A 63-year old Catholic grandmother of 12 was violently attacked outside this Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Wilmington, Delaware, as she filmed the fourth abortion injury there in less than five weeks.

According to reports, Rae Stabosz had been praying outside the Planned Parenthood clinic when a woman and her mother came to the clinic. Rae learned that the woman was suffering complications to an abortion she received on March 8. Rae persuaded them to go to St. Francis hospital where it was discovered that aborted baby body parts, including a leg and foot, had been left behind by the abortionist. The woman required additional surgery and was referred to legal counsel.

Rae left Planned Parenthood to attend mass, and when she returned to the Planned Parenthood, she was shocked to see that yet another medical emergency was in progress. As she was filming the incident with her cell phone, a young woman came out of the Planned Parenthood clinic and violently attacked Rae, knocking her down and taking away her phone.

The attacker took Rae’s phone inside the clinic and gave it to a Planned Parenthood worker. Rae immediately ran into the clinic, retrieved her phone, then returned to the street where she continued to film the gurney with the injured patient, covered head to toe in blankets and sheets, being loaded into the ambulance.

The police soon arrived and Rae made a police report, but the attacker has fled the scene. At this writing, she remained at large.

Rae began to feel the effects of the attack, and another ambulance was summoned to transport her to the same hospital where the two Planned Parenthood patients were receiving treatment. Rae was treated and released with minor injuries.

Action News has learned during our investigation that one doctor and two more nurses at the clinic have mysteriously left.