Medical Board Revokes Anaheim Doctor’s License

The California Medical Board on Wednesday revoked the license of embattled Anaheim physician Charles Wesley Turner Jr., who was found negligent in his delivery of 12 babies, including two who died and one newborn who was displayed at a New Year’s Eve midnight church service.

The board based its decision on a recommendation by Administrative Law Judge William F. Byrnes, who concluded after a six-week trial that Turner had been “grossly negligent” in his treatment of three babies born at his Covenant Birthing Center on the grounds of the Melodyland Christian Center in Anaheim.

Turner, 65, has told The Times that he used an anesthetic and forceps to speed up the delivery of the New Year’s baby, who was delivered 15 seconds after midnight on Jan. 1, 1990.

Turner swaddled the 6-pound, 12-ounce Myra Kristine Palmer in a blanket and a Christmas stocking and whisked her 150 feet outside to a building next door, where he displayed her to the Melodyland congregation at a televised religious service as the first baby of the New Year. The baby was unharmed, however.

In a written decision, Byrnes found that Turner’s “removing the baby from the birthing center for viewing by the next-door church congregation constituted gross negligence.”

Byrnes also found that Turner had been negligent in his prenatal care of Myra’s mother, Brigitte Palmer. Palmer testified as a witness for Turner during his trial, and has said she wanted him to deliver her next child.

Turner’s attorney, Roy O. Moss Jr., said experts for the defense had testified that Turner’s actions were not negligent.

“I just can’t believe some of the findings. . . ,” he said. “In my opinion, if you can get doctors to disagree that it’s negligence, how you can find gross negligence is beyond me.”

Moss said he received the Medical Board’s decision Wednesday afternoon and had not yet informed Turner or reached a decision on whether to appeal the license revocation. Turner could not be reached for comment.

Turner was placed on five years’ probation by the Medical Board in 1984 for illegally prescribing drugs and subsequently lost his privileges at Mercy General Hospital, now known as Coastal Communities Hospital, in Santa Ana and then at Santa Ana Hospital Medical Center.

Turner has been sued repeatedly for malpractice, winning one case in a jury trial but settling several others out of court, court records show. During his trial, Turner testified that he had been denied medical malpractice insurance and practiced without such coverage.

Turner left Santa Ana Hospital in April, 1988, after a peer review committee questioned his care in 40% of his cases and revoked his permission to deliver babies there. He opened his birthing center in September, 1988. In the meantime, he delivered babies in his medical office, Byrne found.

Two babies Turner delivered at the Covenant center died within days of birth.

The first case involved a 14-year-old mother whose pregnancy was high risk because of her age and who should have delivered her baby in a hospital, Byrnes found. The baby was born on Aug. 4, 1990, and Turner discharged him within eight hours, although the baby had “grunting respiration” and failed to suck, both signs of infant distress.

Several hours later, the baby developed seizures, was taken to a hospital in full cardiac arrest and died two days later.

“The reasons for the baby’s death are not clear,” Byrnes wrote. “His chances for survival, however, would have been substantially enhanced if he had been transported . . . from the birthing center to the hospital.”

In the second case, Turner failed to diagnose a mother with gestational diabetes and her baby was born dead on Thanksgiving Day, 1990, Byrnes found. He ruled that Turner’s actions in that case had also been grossly negligent.

Byrnes also found that Turner had mishandled the prenatal care and deliveries of nine other patients at Santa Ana Hospital and at his birthing center.

Turner “has a deep-rooted aversion to following rules he does not agree with,” the judge concluded.

“His stubbornness, and his enormous confidence in his own claimed knowledge and ability, have misled him into placing himself in unnecessary emergency situations,” the judge wrote.

“At his Covenant Birthing Center he has been able to practice obstetrics according to his own lights, without the oppression of peer review; for example, he admits to have performed at least two (Cesarean) sections in that shockingly inappropriate setting.

“All indications are that (Turner) will not change and is not a suitable candidate for probation,” the judge concluded.

Byrnes’ report was dated April 19, but was not made public until the Medical Board voted to accept his recommendation and revoke Turner’s license effective Wednesday.

Turner has been barred from practice since Dec. 7, when Orange County Superior Court Judge Eileen C. Moore issued a temporary restraining order while the Medical Board pursued its case against Turner.