Abortion Foes Upset as Suspended Hospital Reopens to Outpatients

The new sign in front of Inglewood Women’s Hospital reads “West Coast Women’s Medical Group.”

The former hospital, which specialized in abortions and had its license suspended by state and county health officials earlier this month, has reopened as a medical group that does abortions.

Amid a swarm of television cameras and anti-abortion demonstrators, health officials shut the hospital Feb. 10, charging that patients were endangered because of continuing health violations at the state’s busiest abortion facility.

However, last week, the former hospital reopened as doctors’ offices called West Coast Women’s Medical Group, which Administrator Paul Workman said is the operating name for West Coast Medical Group Inc., owned by Dr. Morton Barke. Barke is also the owner of Inglewood Women’s Hospital.

Although the hospital’s license was suspended, health officials say the medical group can perform abortions and other operations as long as it does not keep patients overnight. Medical officials said that, by limiting itself to outpatient procedures, the former hospital will operate similarly to most clinics and doctor’s offices that perform abortions.

Change an Inconvenience

Workman said that, apart from some loss of income and employee layoffs, the effect of the changed status has been mainly an inconvenience.

Ralph Lopez, director of the Los Angeles County Health Facilities Division of the state Department of Health Services, said the number of abortions performed at the facility would decline.

“They cannot have inpatient care. They can’t bill the state for procedures as a hospital,” he said.

The loss of overnight care and medical reimbursements will have a financial effect, Lopez said. About 4,000 of the 11,330 abortions performed at the 28-bed hospital in 1986 required overnight care, he said.

Anti-abortion activists expressed anger that the facility is back in business.

‘Bad Press’

“It’s a semantic game,” said David Wilkinson of the Southern California Right to Life League.

“We’re disappointed that they’re back in business,” he said. “Apparently, the department of health can’t do anything about it. The only reason for being a hospital was that they can bill more. So maybe Barke will take in a few less million. The only reason business has been curtailed is because of bad press.”

With the facility’s change in status, oversight authority has switched from the Department of Health Services to the state Board of Medical Quality Assurance, which licenses physicians. That board investigates complaints against physicians and would respond if there are charges that the medical group is providing services as a hospital, Lopez said.

“Now it’s up to the BMQA,” Lopez said. “They should be there in a leadership role.”

Vernon Leeper, chief of the board’s enforcement division, said the medical group can “continue to do abortions. . . . Where BMQA comes in is on a complaint regarding substandard care by a doctor.”

License Surrendered

The hospital, which performed nearly 1,000 abortions a month, surrendered its license after a judge refused its request for a temporary restraining order against the suspension. The hospital has until Thursday to seek an administrative hearing, which must be held within 30 days of the suspension. State Director of Health Service Kenneth W. Kizer then will have another 60 days to decide whether to revoke the license.

Peter Aronson, Barke’s lawyer, could not be reached for comment.

Workman said in an interview that the main effect of the suspension had been financial. The facility, as a hospital, can no longer bill Medi-Cal, although its doctors, as individual providers, can still bill Medi-Cal.

Workman said it was “too early to tell” how the suspension will affect the number using the clinic.

Workman said 25 employees, many of them kitchen workers, have been laid off.

Overnight Care

He said patients who experience complications will have to be transferred to other hospitals. He took issue with Lopez’s assertion that about 4,000 of the abortions performed at the hospital in 1986 had required overnight care.

“The number was less than that,” Workman said, adding that he did not know the precise figure.

Workman reiterated the hospital’s view that state officials were driven by anti-abortion bias into taking action.

“The deficiencies have been corrected,” Workman said. “The department of health acknowledged that. But they said there was no guarantee that we would continue” without violations. “. . . That’s a strange statement. It indicates that there was interest in closing down the facility from the start.”

Lopez has refused to comment on the charge that his department acted because of pressure from anti-abortion forces.

Repeatedly Cited

Inglewood Women’s Hospital was cited repeatedly by county, state and federal officials over three years for violations, including failure to give post-operative examinations, unsanitary and improper conditions and practices, and transfer of unstable patients to other facilities without notification.

The hospital is also the target of a number of lawsuits, including one by the family of a woman who allegedly bled to death after her uterus was punctured during an abortion last year.

Dr. Charles Ballard, head of gynecology at Women’s Hospital at County-USC Medical Center, said the loss of hospital status makes the Inglewood facility essentially the same as other clinics and doctors’ offices that perform abortions.

Inglewood Women’s Hospital was one of the few area facilities that provided second-trimester abortions, Ballard said, adding that, under its new status, it will remain on County-USC’s abortion referral list for first- and second-trimester abortions.

But he expressed concern about a lack of standards at facilities that are not licensed as hospitals, especially in the case of second-trimester abortions that may lead to complications.

“They’re really getting around the whole problem,” he said of the Inglewood facility’s decision to continue operations under a different status. “There are really no standards for clinics. There is no control.”