Doctor’s Defenders Speak Out : Hearing: Testimonials and the presence of fervent supporters doesn’t sway a judge who refuses to lift an order barring Charles Wesley Turner Jr. from practicing.

Armed with testimonials from patients and backed by a small army of well-wishers, including ministers, poor immigrants and pregnant women, Anaheim obstetrician Dr. Charles Wesley Turner Jr. went to court Friday to defend his right to practice medicine.

But Orange County Superior Court Judge Eileen C. Moore refused to lift a temporary restraining order that bars Turner from practice while the Medical Board of California attempts to revoke his license permanently.

“Dr. Turner has exposed both mothers and babies to unnecessary risks,” said Moore, who served as a nurse in Vietnam. “He has generally exercised poor judgment and he should not be allowed to practice obstetrics.”

“I practice top medicine,” Turner said as he left Moore’s courtroom. “I don’t practice second-rate medicine.” He predicted that he will be vindicated after a full hearing before the Medical Board in January.

Two babies have died under Turner’s care since August. The Medical Board alleges that Turner has been grossly negligent in the treatment of at least 20 patients since 1987, that his incompetence and negligence caused the death of at least one newborn, and that “he is a menace to the health and safety of the mothers and babies he treats.”

Among the doctor’s backers Friday was the mother of a baby whose delivery Turner speeded up so that the infant could be displayed at the Melodyland Christian Center at midnight last New Year’s Eve. Though the state alleges that Turner acted negligently in his handling of that birth, the mother, Brigitte Palmer, said neither she nor her daughter, Myra, were harmed by the experience.

“Even after all the allegations I’ve heard today, I’m pregnant and I’m expecting my third child, and I want him to deliver it,” Palmer said in the courthouse hallway after the judge ruled against Turner.

In a spirited courtroom defense, Turner’s attorney, Roy O. Moss Jr., argued that Turner is a competent, caring, Christian physician who treats immigrants and the indigent regardless of their ability to pay.

Noting that overburdened emergency rooms and hospitals are no longer welcoming uninsured women, even those in labor, Moss said that Turner’s removal will hurt the needy most.

“The poor people are going to suffer--the ones that only have Medi-Cal or no medical insurance and can’t find a hospital to take them,” he argued.

Moss contended that the fetal death rate of infants at Turner’s Covenant Birthing Center, located on the grounds of Melodyland, is 1.3 per 1,000 live births. That compares with an Orange County average of 6.4 deaths in 1988, Moss said.

“If you review Dr. Turner’s records on infant and maternal mortality, he’s the guy that everybody in this county ought to go to,” Moss said.

Gesturing to a courtroom packed with at least 50 supporters, some of whom clutched Bibles and quietly held their palms up in a gesture of charismatic prayer, Moss argued that Turner’s patients were “voting with their feet” by attending the hearing. At one point, Turner’s backers murmured their support for Moss’ arguments, and the judge ordered them to be silent.

Moss said that 51 people, including two doctors and scores of patients, had submitted letters to the court in Turner’s defense. He said that Turner had not had time to have other doctors review his cases and rebut the Medical Board’s “expert” testimony.

The allegations against Turner, Moss argued, are based on a review of 12 of the doctor’s worst cases. But the 65-year-old physician should be judged by his entire record, because in delivering 19,000 babies, he has lost only one mother and eight infants, the lawyer said.

“I dare say if you took the 12 worst cases of any OB-GYN specialist in Orange County for the last four years, he’s going to look bad,” Moss said.

Judge Moore appeared unconvinced by such arguments. At one point, she told Moss: “You seem to be implying that Dr. Turner has a right to 12 or so bad cases, just like a dog has a right to one free bite.”

Later, she said to the attorney: “You are arguing to me that Dr. Turner serves poor people and serves Christian people in Orange County. Because he does this service, does this mean the standard (of medical care) should be lowered?”

The judge added: “Why should I expose the poor women or the rich women of Orange County to treatment like this?”

Among the allegations against Turner are that he accepted high-risk patients, including a 14-year-old girl and a woman delivering twins, in a birthing center that was not equipped to handle cases that developed complications.

The Medical Board also alleges that Turner ruptured pregnant women’s membranes and needlessly used forceps to remove babies; that in one case he discharged as normal a child with obvious birth defects who died a year later from its deformities, and that he failed to diagnose gestational diabetes, fetal growth retardation and other problems. In court papers filed Friday, Turner denies these allegations.

The Medical Board is also investigating the Thanksgiving Day death of a 12 1/2-pound baby girl delivered at the birthing center, Deputy Atty. Gen. Margaret Lafko said. An emergency team from UCI Medical Center in Orange was summoned to the birthing center after the baby was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around its neck and never began to breathe.

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

Turner disputes this, saying in court documents that the baby was stillborn and that a full tank of oxygen was available in the delivery room closet had it been needed.

Prosecutors, however, also noted that Turner has been disciplined by the Medical Board once before after giving improper drug prescriptions to an undercover medical investigator in 1981. In 1984, court records show, Turner’s license was placed on probation for five years.

In 1988, Turner’s admitting privileges at Santa Ana Hospital Medical Center were revoked after a peer review found that he had provided substandard care to 40% of his patients.

“What we are looking at is almost a 10-year history of a physician providing incompetent care,” prosecutor Lafko told the judge.

Because Turner owns the birthing center and is not subject to peer review, the Medical Board hears about problems only when patients complain--and Turner’s patients, a majority of whom are low-income Latino women, rarely complain about substandard care, Lafko argued.

Several of Turner’s patients on Friday called that charge unfair.

“He literally saved my life,” said Frank Brasel, a missionary who commutes from Victorville to be treated by Turner. Brasel said that both he and his wife, Faith, had medical problems uncovered by Turner that had gone undiagnosed by other physicians, and claimed that his own medical care would be jeopardized by the state’s action.

“Where do I go now?” Brasel asked, adding:

“I have insurance. . . . I am intelligent. I am knowledgeable. I have a choice. I choose Dr. Turner. This court has put my life at risk.”

“We deeply feel that there is a wrongful accusation against him,” agreed Mai Tieu Hoang. The 40-year-old refugee said that Turner has sponsored her and more than 20 relatives who fled Vietnam in 1975, and at one time had had 50 refugees living under his roof. “He’s very warmhearted, very caring. He would do anything to help people.

“My children were delivered by him and they were safe under his care and they were healthy and intelligent,” Hoang testified.

An administrative hearing at which the Medical Board will seek to revoke Turner’s license is scheduled for late January and is expected to run for at least two weeks, Lafko said.