Judge Revokes License of Birthing Center Doctor

An Orange County Superior Court judge temporarily revoked the license Friday of a controversial Anaheim obstetrician under whose care two newborn infants have died since August.

Judge Eileen C. Connor issued the temporary restraining order at the request of the Medical Board of California, which alleges the doctor has displayed “a clear pattern of incompetence” and has since June been seeking to have the doctor stripped of his license permanently.

Dr. Charles Wesley Turner Jr. “is a menace to the health and safety of the mothers and babies he treats,” the medical board alleges.

Turner’s admitting privileges at Santa Ana Hospital Medical Center were revoked in 1988 after a peer review found he had given substandard care to 40% of his patients, court documents show. Turner, 65, now runs the Covenant Birthing Center on land he leases from the Melodyland Christian Center in Anaheim.

Turner’s medical practices drew widespread criticism earlier this year after he told The Times that he had hastened the delivery of a baby last New Year’s Eve in order to display the newborn at a midnight religious service being broadcast on national television from Melodyland.

Turner was already under investigation for gross negligence and incompetence by the medical board, which had disciplined him for illegal drug prescriptions in 1984, Deputy Atty. Gen. Margaret Lafko said Friday.

Although the New Year’s Eve baby was not harmed, and her parents found no fault with the doctor, medical experts who reviewed the case said Turner was negligent in leaving the anesthetized mother unattended for nine minutes while he whisked the baby outdoors to a building 150 feet away to be viewed by the waiting congregation.

The publicity also generated other complaints against Turner, including evidence of two deaths of infants delivered at the birthing center after high-risk pregnancies, prompting prosecutors to ask the court to strip Turner of his license immediately, Lafko said.

Turner, who appeared in court without an attorney, answered questions from the judge but declined to comment on the allegations against him. He will be given a full hearing Dec. 26.

“I have delivered over 750 babies,” he told the judge. “I have sent all these babies home with the exception of eight babies over the last two years. The babies go home healthy.”

The state medical board alleges that Turner has shown gross negligence or incompetence during 12 deliveries since 1987, five of them at Santa Ana Hospital Medical Center, and seven at his own birthing center.

“Turner was unsafe while practicing in a peer-review setting” at the Santa Ana hospital, the suit alleges. “In his birthing center, he is a menance to the health and safety of the mothers and babies he treats.”

The suit alleges that Turner accepted high-risk patients although his birthing center was not equipped to handle complications and had no other physicians to provide emergency backup care.

Turner also allegedly failed to detect gestational diabetes and fetal growth retardation, and discharged as a healthy baby one infant born with severe abnormalities. The child died one year later, court documents show.

In a June interview with a medical board investigators, Turner stated that his wife, a nurse who also operates the anesthesia machine at the birthing place, is not a licensed nurse-anesthetist, the documents show.

One of the two infants who died under Turner’s care was the child of a 14-year-old girl whose pregnancy was considered high-risk because of her age, court documents show. Turner allegedly induced labor Aug. 3, delivered the baby with forceps “for no apparent reason” and in doing so injured him.

Although the baby was listless, failed to suck and was grunting, a sign of respiratory distress, Turner sent the baby and mother home the next day. That night, the infant suffered seizures and cardiac arrest and was taken to Children’s Hospital of Orange County, where he died two days later, court documents show.

Prosecutors said they are still investigating the second death, which took place on Thanksgiving. An emergency team from UCI Medical Center in Orange was summoned to the birthing center after the 12 1/2-pound baby was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around its neck and never began to breathe, Turner told the judge Friday.

The team reported finding Turner attending the mother while his wife was attempting to resuscitate the baby by mouth through a tube. The oxygen tanks in the birthing center were empty, the UCI team’s records show.

Under questioning from Judge Connor, Turner defended several of his deliveries. In the case of the second death, he said he did not know the baby would be so large, but that it was dead before delivery.

“It was quite traumatic and it was quite traumatic for me too, because I have not lost very many babies,” he said.

Frank Heckl, who investigated the case for the medical board, said the majority of Turner’s patients were low-income women who had Medi-Cal or immigrants who paid cash and who probably did not know they were receiving substandard care.

“He advertised in Spanish-language papers,” Heckl said. “Most of his patients tend to be low-income Spanish-speaking people. They do not often complain.”