Abortion center ordered to close
An East Side abortion clinic will be forced to close this month after state regulators uncovered more than a dozen health code violations, prompting officials to reject the center's request for a new license.
In a lengthy compliance report issued in June, the Ohio Department of Health cited the Center for Women's Health in Cleveland for failing to have patient transfer agreements with hospitals in case of emergency, among other violations. In what seemed to be the most serious infraction, the clinic had difficulty finding a hospital willing to admit a patient who encountered complications during her second-trimester abortion.
The center demonstrated lapses in routine care, the state said.
"[There were] six to seven patients where there was no record that their temperature or blood pressure had been taken before the procedure," said Roy Croy, who works for the division of the state health department that oversees ambulatory and surgical care facilities, including abortion clinics. "These are things that should be done before you start surgery."
Dr. Martin Ruddock, who runs the Center for Women's Health, did not return calls seeking comment.
Though not the busiest abortion clinic in Greater Cleveland, the Center for Women's Health is one of two in Northeast Ohio and among a handful in the Midwest willing to terminate a pregnancy beyond 20 weeks' gestation, when the procedures are more complex.
A number of these patients, some who learn of severe deformities late in pregnancy, find their way to Ruddock's center because the hospitals where their regular physicians are based will not perform abortions.
Other local abortion providers speak favorably of Ruddock, but his relations with the state health department have been rocky.
The Center for Women's Health has been licensed as an ambulatory surgical care facility since 2000 but let its license lapse in November. The reason is not immediately clear, although Croy said Ruddock considered the center a private medical practice and did not believe it should be regulated by the state.
But Croy said advertisements described the center as an ambulatory-surgical care facility.
"The fact of the matter is, the way the statute is written, if you hold yourself out as an ambulatory facility, you are an ambulatory facility," Croy said.
In Ohio, 34 clinics perform abortions. Most are licensed as ambulatory-surgical care facilities.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
rmcenery@plaind.com, 216-999-5338
