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| Gosnell’s Clinic — Gut-Wrenching and Gross! |
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Information taken from Medscape Medical News 28 Jan 2011 — edited by CLQ Inc. A complete regulatory collapse allowed Philadelphia physician Kermit Gosnell, 69, to illegally abort third-trimester unborn babies and sever their spinal cords with scissors after they were aborted alive. He left a trail of injured and dead female patients in his wake over several decades, according to a Pennsylvania grand jury report, labelling him “Butcher of Women”. The report released findings that many agencies and individuals saw numerous signs of something gone terribly wrong but failed to intervene.  Gosnell ignored the 24-hour waiting period between an initial consultation and performing an abortion as is required by Pennsylvania law, on his patients, many who were poor and from minority groups. Jars of foetal body parts were discovered stored in freezers. According to Gosnell he kept the foetal feet in case of disputed paternity! He has been charged with the murder of 7 newborn infants and also of a Bhutanese immigrant following an overdose of a meperidine (Demerol) dispensed by unlicensed, untrained and unsupervised employees at his abortion mill. He is further charged with aborting unborn babies over the state’s legal limit of 24 weeks, violating the state’s controlled substance law, abusing corpses, and corrupting the morals of a minor who he hired at age 15. The grand jury also indicted 9 of his employees with many of the same crimes, including murdering the Bhutanese immigrant, Karnamayar Mongar, and the infants aborted alive, and performing illegal abortions. Gosnell’s wife Pearl was among them, along with two medical school graduates who were posing as licensed physicians. The regulatory agency continued to certify the ‘clinic’ as an abortion provider with sporadic inspections through 1993. Visits unearthed numerous violations. Gosnell was not board-certified as an obstetrician /gynaecologist, there were no licensed nurses on hand to supervise the recovery of patients and pathology reports required for second-trimester abortions were missing. Sometime after 1993, DOH changed inspections of abortion mills from an (supposedly) annual basis to inspecting them only when a complaint was received. According to DOH officials quoted in the report, the former governor Thomas Ridge, who took office in 1995, opposed routine inspections lest they uncover violations — specifically those requiring emergency egress by wheelchair and stretcher that would shut down the “clinics”. DOH failed to inspect the “clinic” or revoke its licence for the next 16 years despite at least 2 complaints of patients suffering harm under Gosnell’s care. One complaint made by paediatrician, Donald Schwarz, stated that patients he referred to the “clinic” came back infected with venereal disease. When DOH inspectors finally returned to the “clinic” on the evening of 18 February 2010, accompanied by FBI and other law enforcement agents, what they saw and smelled was appalling. “There was blood on the floor. A stench of urine filled the air. A flea-infested cat was wandering through the facility and there was cat faeces on the stairs. Semi-conscious women ... sat on dirty recliners covered with blood-stained blankets,” the report stated. A federal agent likened the two surgical procedure rooms to a “bad gas station bathroom” on account of their filth and rusty outdated equipment. No working resuscitation or monitoring equipment was found apart from a blood pressure cuff. According to the report, over 10 years ago a former employee complained to the state medical board about dirty and unsterilised conditions, unlicensed workers, roaming cats, unsupervised sedation, underage abortion patients and overprescribing of pain pills. A state investigator interviewed Gosnell off-site but never went inside the “clinic”, talked to the employees or examined the records. The complaint was dismissed as unconfirmed! Further official neglect includes the Pennsylvania Department of State choosing not to take disciplinary action with a medical board stating “the risk was inherent with the procedure” in relation to a young woman dying of infection and sepsis after Gosnell perforated her uterus and cervix during an abortion. There are many other violations either committed or allowed by Gosnell, far too numerous to mention, and all with the seemingly tacit “approval” at worst, or “turn a blind eye” at best of the relevant regulatory medical and health departments who had been made aware of them over many years. The grand jury issued stiff recommendations to “address systematic flaws” that allowed Gosnell to practice as he did for so long. It recommended serious tightening in all areas of regulation of abortionists, and that relevant departments should make it easier for individuals to file complaints about the abortionists. The ultimate reason offered as to why Gosnell was able to operate his “baby charnel house” for so long, is summed up by this grand jury statement, “Bureaucratic inertia is not exactly news. We understand that. But we think this was something more. We think the reason no one acted is because the women in question were poor and of colour, because the victims were infants without identities, and because the subject was the political subject of abortion.” (Our comment: And all of this happened in a state in a first-world country where abortion is legal! Yet the abortion lobbyists scream that all of this will go away once it is legal — we think not and this proves it!) |