New Jersey Health Department orders closure of abortion clinic, lawsuit filed

The New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services last week ordered one of the state's largest abortion providers -- Metropolitan Medical Associates in Englewood, N.J. -- to close after finding violations that posed "immediate and serious risk of harm to patients," the Bergen Record reports.

Metropolitan Medical, which opened in the 1970s, performs more than 10,000 abortions annually and is one of the few clinics in the state that perform abortions up to 24 weeks' gestation, the Record reports (Padawer, Bergen Record, 2/28). A woman named Rasheedah Dinkins on Thursday filed a lawsuit in the State Superior Court in Newark, N.J., against the clinic, charging clinic physicians Keith Gresham and Nicholas Kotopoulos with "negligent, careless and reckless care," the New York Times reports. According to Dinkins' lawyer Adam Slater, Dinkins on Jan. 27 went to Metropolitan Medical to have an abortion of a fetus at more than 15 weeks' gestation. After the procedure, she had pains and was taken to Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, where she was unconscious for more than three weeks, had two strokes and was forced to undergo a hysterectomy, according to Slater. Newark Beth Israel filed a complaint against Metropolitan Medical to the state health department, and the agency went to inspect the clinic on Feb. 2 and moved up a licensing inspection appointment to last week, the Times reports. According to the Times, the health department ordered the clinic to stop seeing patients after the licensing inspection (Fahim, New York Times, 3/2). The closure order cited problems at the clinic "including, but not limited to, infection control, instruments, equipment used for sterilization of patient care use items and the processing of equipment." The state is requiring the clinic to hire infection control and administrative consultants, both of whom must be approved by the state and be at the clinic at least 40 hours per week. The consultants "shall have full authority to review, revise, if necessary, and implement all facility policies and procedures," the order said. In addition, the consultants must submit weekly written reports to the health department.

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"We will rescind the order once the major violations are taken care of and a plan of corrections, approved by the department, is in place," health department spokesperson Nathan Rudy said, adding that the department will "do follow-up inspections to make sure all violations have been abated." The health department said it would not publicly release specific violations until the clinic had a chance to respond to the investigation's findings and a final report is issued. According to the Record, Metropolitan Medical is telling callers that it will be closed until Tuesday and is referring patients to other local abortion facilities (Padawer, Bergen Record, 2/28). According to the Times, a staff member at Metropolitan Medical did not connect a reporter to the physicians named in the lawsuit. Dinkins on Thursday was transferred to a branch of the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation (New York Times, 3/2).