Nearly a year after A Preferred Women’s Health Center was temporarily shut down, the southeast Charlotte clinic is again operating with a full state license.
The abortion clinic’s license was restored to full status nearly seven months ago, after inspectors visited June 26 and found the facility “in compliance,” says Jim Jones, spokesman for the N.C. Division of Facility Services, which regulates clinics.
The return to full licensure marked a turnaround for the clinic, which was shut down for several days after a complaint led to a two-day inspection starting on Feb. 8. The visit revealed disturbing conditions and patient outcomes that Jeff Horton, head of the division, last spring said placed patients in “immediate jeopardy.”
The National Abortion Federation, an industry group that sets standards for its member clinics, would only say in an e-mail last week that the Charlotte facility remains a member in good standing. Lois Turner, who with her husband also owns clinics in Raleigh and Augusta, Ga., didn’t return a call seeking comment. Nor did Dr. Jonathan Weston, who received a “public letter of concern” from the medical board that said he should have examined a patient before giving her medication that ultimately required hospitalization.
The medical board, according to the letter, also was concerned that Weston performed outpatient surgery while not having hospital privileges and that the clinic didn’t have arrangements with another doctor who had hospital privileges.
State regulators had not suspended an abortion clinic’s license since the late 1990s, when Women’s Choice of North Carolina in Greensboro was shut down temporarily. Prior to the shutdown last February, A Preferred Women’s Health Center hadn’t been inspected in more than 3 years. Jones says the clinic will likely be re-inspected within 15 months and that clinics are subject to annual inspections.
The clinic is one of three free-standing facilities in Charlotte licensed to perform abortions. According to NARAL Pro-Choice America, 78 percent of N.C. counties have no abortion provider.
This article appears in Jan 16-22, 2008.
