Conditions at Planned Parenthood abortion facility detailed during inspection hearing

Conditions at a Planned Parenthood abortion facility have been published after several ambulance calls prompted a lawmaker to introduce clinic inspection legislation.

The Missouri House approved a bill by a vote of 119-35 on Wednesday that requires abortion clinics to be subject to an annual inspection by the state’s health department

The bill was introduced by State Rep. Kathy Swan, R-Cape Girardeau, after hearing about ambulances racing to and from a St. Louis abortion clinic from “bystanders watching the facility.”

She said the bill would require a yearly on-site inspection at the Planned Parenthood of St. Louis in the Central West End, where the incidents occurred.

The pro-life group, Operation Rescue has created a list of dates that witnesses have seen ambulances transporting women from the St. Louis Planned Parenthood:

November 12, 2014
July 10, 2014
October 29, 2013
October 11, 2013
September 10, 2013
August 21, 2013
January 19, 2013
December 26, 2012
December 1, 2012
November 21, 2012
June 26, 2012
October 19, 2011
May 25, 2011
April 22, 2011
February 12, 2011
August 23, 2010
April 2,2010
March 31, 2010
March 18, 2010
January 22, 2010
October 24, 2009
October 22, 2009
September 29, 2009
September 29, 2009
June 30, 2009
June 17, 2009
June 13, 2009

In discussing the legislation, an article in the St Louis Dispatch today also detailed conditions at the Planned Parenthood facility.

It reads in part:

Expired medication as well as rusty stools and table castors were found at the state’s only abortion clinic in St. Louis during a 2013 inspection. Four years earlier, the clinic was dinged for not documenting training procedures.

Documents obtained by the Post-Dispatch show the St. Louis clinic was inspected three times in the past decade. Only about 6 percent of centers were inspected more often than Planned Parenthood, according to the state records. The data does not include all follow-up inspections if deficiencies were discovered, department spokesman Ryan Hobart said.

The department currently is required to inspect these centers “as it deems necessary,” once when first licensed and subsequently based on compliance history and time since the last inspection, Hobart said. Planned Parenthood of St. Louis was inspected in 2009, 2013 and 2014 after complaints.

Though deficiencies were discovered in 2009 and 2013, M’Evie Mead, state director of organizing for Planned Parenthood, said at a hearing this month that those problems had been addressed and that “at no time was a patient at risk.”



Some of those deficiencies included only one fire drill per year instead of the required two, inadequate documentation of training procedures and expired medication. Rust on stools and castors on tables and an IV pole also were found, along with oxygen tanks with tape residue and rust. The clinic received a clean bill of health in 2014.

In 2013, Operation Rescue obtained a copy of an inspection report issued by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services detailing 14 pages of violations at the St. Louis Planned Parenthood.

In their analysis, Operation Rescue noted that Planned Parenthood seems more concerned about pro-life activists witnessing injured women being transferred from the abortion clinic to hospital emergency rooms than correcting their problems.