A common practice

The Alabama Department of Public Health has released more details about their investigation of Summit Medical Center.

According to the Birmingham News:

The state health department issued a more detailed report Friday
on the closing of Summit Medical Center, saying that other women received abortions without the presence of a doctor, in addition to the woman who delivered a 6-pound, 4-ounce stillborn child.

"Four of 10 sampled patients did not have a physician present," said Dr. Don Williamson, state health officer. "There were multiple violations of rules over multiple days."

Besides the woman who went to a hospital and had a stillborn infant, there were five patients whose records do not show that a determination was made on fetal viability.

"The rules require that viability be determined, and that a notation be made in the medical records," Williamson said. "In five other patients it was not documented."

From the AP:

In a report released Friday, state health officials said they found "egregious lapses in care, including non-physicians performing abortions, severely underestimating the gestational age of a fetus, failure to appropriately refer or treat a patient with a dangerously elevated blood pressure, and performing an abortion on a late-term pregnancy." ...

The report said other state health regulations were not followed:

_Three other women received RU 486 from the nurse practitioner without a doctor being present and without a doctor reviewing an ultrasound before they received the abortion medication.

_Five women had second trimester abortions — one at 19 weeks and the others at 21 weeks — without a doctor marking a spot on medical records that requires the doctor to determine viability of the fetus.

_The clinic's doctor was signing medical records for procedures performed when she was not present.