By Cheryl Sullenger
Washington, D.C. – New documents have surfaced concerning a complaint filed by a MedStar Washington Hospital Center employee in June 2019, against Capital Women’s Services, a notorious late-term abortion facility in Washington, D.C. The complaint alleges that four women were hospitalized at Medstar Washington Hospital Center after suffering horrendous abortion injuries over a 12 to 18-month period ending in June 2019.
Also included in the packet of documents was a bizarre six-page letter written on Capital Women’s Services letterhead and signed simply as “United Health group LLC.” That letter was in response to subpoenas issued by Health Regulation and Licensing Administration, which was investigating the MedStar Washington Hospital complaint.
Capital Women’s Services has connections to the now-unlicensed New Jersey abortionist Steven Chase Brigham, who is infamous for his substandard, corners-cutting, and deceptive abortion practices. He is perhaps most known for operating an illegal late-term abortion facility in Elkton, Maryland, where police found the bodies of 30 late-term aborted babies in a bloody freezer in 2010. That prompted a Cecil County grand jury to indict him and his accomplice, former Utah abortionist Nicola Riley, in December 2010, on six counts each of Murder in the First Degree and Second Degree, along with one count of Conspiracy to Commit Murder. Unfortunately, due to a technicality, those charges were dropped, but the case did result in medical license revocations for both Brigham and Riley, and the closure of the “secret” late-term facility in Elkton, Maryland.
The injuries reported by MedStar Washington Hospital employee Pam Lotke in 2019 are in addition to those suffered by Markeisha Hemsley, who is suing Capital Women’s Services and nurse practitioner Khalilah Q. Jefferson, who allegedly conducted an incomplete abortion with uterine perforation, cervical lacerations, and other internal injuries on Hemsley in 2018. Hemsley claims in her medical malpractice complaint that she was transferred against her will to a medical office in Maryland where Jefferson illegally made a second failed attempt at completing the surgical abortion before finally posing as Hemsley’s mother during a 911 call for emergency transport to a Maryland hospital.
MedStar Washington Hospital allegations
The 2019 complaint against Capital Women’s Services detailed injuries to three women that raised her concerns about patient care standards at that abortion facility.
- One woman received an abortion at Capital Women’s Services on April 12, 2019. After her 13-14-week abortion, she went to the Emergency Room with almost 12 inches of bowel hanging out of her vagina. She underwent a lengthy surgery to resect her bowel.
- On June 3, 2019, another woman received a nine-week abortion at Capital Women’s Services, but afterward experienced so much pain that she sought help at the MedStar Washington Hospital Emergency Room. There, doctors found she had a swollen loop of bowel in her vagina and a viable 9-week pregnancy still in her uterus. She had emergency surgery to resect nearly 6 inches of her bowel.
- A third woman also reportedly experienced a botched abortion at Capital Women’s Services, but no date was provided in Lotke’s letter. That woman called an ambulance for herself in the middle of the night after becoming convinced that her abortion was not completed. At the emergency room, it was discovered that she had fetal parts in her abdomen and a perforated vagina.
There were no details included for a fourth woman that Lotke said suffered serious abortion complications at Capital Women’s Services.
“Only mentioned nurse practitioners…”
“While I understand that complications happen with any procedures [sic], the severity and frequency of these complications is disturbing. This has prompted me to reach out to the department of health. By report, the patients have only mentioned nurse practitioners in their care, no physician,” wrote Lotke. [Emphasis added.]
The Hemsley malpractice suit confirmed that Capital Women’s Services allowed an unsupervised nurse practitioner to conduct risky second trimester surgical abortions. Why allow this dangerous practice? Nurse practitioners are less expensive to hire than licensed physicians – another hallmark of Steven Brigham’s corners-cutting business model.
Unfortunately, Lotke’s complaint resulted in no visible changes at Capital Women’s Services. Two sources informed Operation Rescue separately earlier last month that women suffering serious abortion complications are seen at emergency rooms weekly after abortions at Capital Women’s Services. Operation Rescue attempting to verify this information.
United Health Group, LLC
An odd letter from Capital Women’s Services dated June 17, 2019, was chock-full of misrepresentations in response subpoenas issued by the Health Regulation and Licensing Administration in Washington, D.C. based on Lokte’s complaint.
In the interest of brevity, here are just a few of the many eyebrow-raising statements in that letter.
- “Capital Women’s Services is a private medical practice owned by Dr. Myron Rose, M.D.”
This is factually incorrect. Capital Women’s Services is a d/b/a for United Health Group LLC, whose “organizer” is Clearlight Management Services, in Lindenwold, New Jersey. While United Health Group LLC is a registered business in Washington, D.C., a search for Clearlight Management Services yielded no results on the N.J. Department of Treasury Business Search page. While paperwork on United Heath Group LLC is more complicated than that, Operation Rescue has pulled the thread on the garment and unraveled the truth that Steven Chase Brigham is the man in control of Capital Women’s Services and other abortion business that were once part of his American Women’s Services chain of abortion facilities that once spanned five states and the District of Columbia.
Operation Rescue has documented over 38 shell businesses behind which Brigham has attempted to conceal his control to avoid paying a $6.5 million judgement in a medical malpractice suit. He may not own any assets on paper, but he continues to control and profit from his abortion businesses, usually though the use of a “management services” company, since he no longer holds a valid medical license.
- “[Myron Rose] also occasionally sees patients as a provider.”
Keep in mind that this letter was written on June 17, 2019. Myron Rose’s Washington Post obituary indicates that he died just days later on July 11, 2019, in Tampa, Florida, where he had retired with his wife. He was 82 at the time of his death. Rose continues to be listed on the Capital Women’s Services website as its Medical Director.
- “Khalilah Jefferson, is a Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner who holds a Doctorate Degree as a Nurse Practitioner, specializing in Women’s Health.”
This is a misleading statement. Jefferson, who was involved in Markeisha Hemsley’s horrendously botched abortion, received a Doctor of Nursing Practice Degree from Coppin State University on December 12, 2016. A DNP is the highest nursing degree available. However, a DNP does not make a person a physician, according to https://nurse.org/education/dnp-degree/. Calling a DNP a “Doctorate” is confusing and any reference to a nurse with a DNP as a “Doctor” amounts to “pretending to be a doctor.”
- “… Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt…concluded that requiring abortion providers to be licensed as a surgical center provided ‘little to no benefit’ to the patients and was therefore, unconstitutional.”
That is a complete misrepresentation of what the Hellerstedt ruling. United Health Group LLC was making an argument that it did not require licensure, claiming that only a minority percentage of its services involve abortion surgeries. However, the Hellerdtedt decision never ruled that licensing abortion facilities is unconstitutional. [Check the opinion for yourselves.]
The letter also mentioned Elizabeth Swallow as a licensed physician who worked at Capital Women’s Services at the time. Swallow also conducted late-term abortions at the C.A.R.E. facility in Bethesda, Maryland, which is owned and operated by LeRoy Carhart. Swallow is a named defendant in Ashley P. Norris v. LeRoy Carhart, et al, a federal medical malpractice suit that has since been moved to a Maryland state court. According to that suit, Swallow failed to adequately dilate Norris’ cervix then tore a five-inch hole in her uterus, lacerating her colon and causing massive hemorrhaging.
“It seems the adage that ‘birds of a feather flock together’ is true, at least in this case. Abortionists Carhart and Brigham tend to hire the bottom of the barrel abortionists to work at their facilities, and these frequent life-threatening injuries are the result,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman.
Excuses for failing to report “adverse events.”
“We are not planning to report any of the three patients you subpoenaed to your administration as ‘adverse events.’ First of all, your administration already is fully aware of the patients and don’t need a report from us. But more importantly, we don’t know for a fact that any of them meet the definition of ‘adverse event’ as defined in the regulation,” wrote United Health Group LLC.
That snarky response was followed by excuses as to why they believed the three incidents did not require reporting. From the descriptions of the incidents, it is difficult to tell whether they are the same three injured women reported by Lotke or if they are three different women.
One woman received a failed abortion. She returned for a second abortions which was “uneventful,” claiming she “suffered no injury.
A second woman received a first trimester abortion under local anesthesia conducted by Nurse Practitioner Cathy Chapman.
“Chapman said she encountered difficulty during the procedure, and so she stopped and asked the patient, who was stable, to return the next morning to see Dr. Swallow, who was a more experienced provider. What happened after that, we don’t know for sure,” stated United Health Group LLC.
However, asking a woman to come back tomorrow after a difficult and incomplete abortion seems dangerous, at best. An ambulance should have been called for her. There is no mention that they ever tried to follow up with this woman when she failed to show up for her appointment.
Finally, a third woman underwent an abortion at 23-weeks by Elizabeth Swallow and suffered serious complications.
“The procedure seemed to be going uneventfully. The fetus was delivered vaginally without complication. However, when she went to deliver the placenta, the uterus inverted and was attached to the placenta.”
The woman was transferred to an unnamed hospital after which the abortion business claims not to have any knowledge of what happened to her. Claiming it was possible that the placenta later detached and the uterus reverted back to normal on its own without injury, United Health Group LLC saw no reason to report this major complication as an adverse event.
More excuses
The letter continued to feign cooperation while withholding information that was under subpoena. At one point the letter opines that the Health Regulation and Licensing Administration is not entitled to patient information because it would violate patient privacy and possibly expose women who had abortions at Capital Women’s Services that are working for the HRLA. This attempt at manipulation and intimidation is outrageous.
“Since the abortion facility continues to practice, it is obvious that nothing significant happened to the abortion business, despite their obvious falsehoods and evasiveness,” said Newman. “That alone is shocking that an oversight agency would allow the dangerous practices at Capital Women’s Services to continue unabated.”
Operation Rescue has filed complaints against Capital Women’s Services and Khalilah Q. Jefferson in Washington, D.C. and in Maryland.
“It may not be illegal to kill a baby in America right now, but it is illegal to injure and maim women though incompetence. That is why we use the law that exists to file complaints that can close clinics and save the lives of innocent babies,” said Newman. “We hope that our recent complaints will motivate authorities in Washington, D.C., and Maryland to take a fresh look at the appalling practices at Capital Women’s Services. Turning a blind eye to the kind of back-ally practices and duplicity we are seeing there only creates a climate where women and babies will continue to be injured and killed. It’s a wonder we haven’t already seen a woman die from an incompetent abortion at Capital Women’s Services,” said Newman. “Closing that dangerous abortion mill will protect women and their babies from horrific injury, torture, and death.”
