Woman sues abortion clinic after coma
Eyewitness News
(Newark - WABC, March 1, 2007) - A Newark woman who said she spent a month in a coma after undergoing an abortion at a Bergen County clinic sued the facility and several doctors there on Thursday.
Rasheedah Dinkins, who is still recovering in a hospital, said she regrets having ended her pregnancy.
"I think it's horrible what I had to go through," she told The Associated Press from her hospital bed Thursday morning. In retrospect, she added, "I probably wouldn't have made this choice."
Dinkins said she was told by her mother and personnel at the hospital that she actually died in the ambulance on the way there, but was revived en route to the facility.
She said she only regained the ability to speak on Tuesday.
"We expect to get to the bottom of why this incredibly horrible result could have happened from such a simple procedure," her lawyer, Adam Slater, said.
The shutdown order cites problems involving infection control, instruments and equipment used for sterilization.
A woman who answered the telephone at the clinic Thursday said the facility remained closed, but had no other immediate comment. She said a representative of the clinic might comment on the situation later Thursday.
The clinic's Web site says its physicians have a complication rate of less than 1 per 1,000 procedures, calling its staff "the finest in the state of New Jersey."
Marie Tasy, executive director of New Jersey Right To Life, called on other women who have had poor experiences at the clinic to come forward.
"Abortion has never been a safe procedure for mother or baby," she said. "It is our hope that more women who have been injured at Metropolitan Medical Associates will have the courage to come forward and reveal their experiences once they realize that they are not alone."
Dinkins, 20, felt ill after undergoing the abortion, and had to be rushed to a hospital by ambulance after she passed out at her home, her family said.
"I was laying in my bed and I got the cold shakes," Dinkins said. "My body kept going numb. After that, I don't remember anything."
At the hospital, she was given blood transfusions and had her uterus removed, Slater said. The attorney also said Dinkins suffered a stroke due to serious blood loss, and one of her lungs collapsed.
The closure is only the second time in the last five years that state health regulators have shut down one of New Jersey's more than 600 ambulatory care facilities on allegations of deficient care. (Copyright 2007 WABC-TV)
____________________________________________________Coma case triggered probe, closing of Englewood clinic
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The 20-year-old whose troubled abortion led to the investigation and shutdown of one of the state's largest clinics suffered through massive hemorrhaging and a lengthy coma, along with a stroke and a hysterectomy.
"I wish I would have gone home before I had that abortion," whispered Rasheedah Dinkins, who only regained consciousness Friday, four weeks after an abortion at Metropolitan Medical Associates' Englewood clinic.
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Hours after the procedure, Dinkins became increasingly sluggish at her Newark home. At first, her mother, Michelle Lewis, thought the anesthesia was simply slow to wear off, but within the next three hours, Dinkins could no longer walk or talk.
"I called the clinic and I told them she didn't look right," Lewis said. "I'm a home health aide and I deal with patients. I saw her fingernails were real blue, and she was all cold and I knew something was wrong."
By the time the ambulance arrived, Dinkins had passed out.
Once at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, doctors gave Dinkins transfusions and removed her damaged uterus, Lewis and the family's attorney, Adam Slater, said. The extreme loss of blood led to a stroke and caused her left lung to collapse, they said. A respirator and tracheotomy followed.
On Wednesday, Metropolitan Medical -- which does more than 10,000 abortions a year -- declined comment.
On Jan. 31, Newark Beth Israel filed a formal complaint with the state, saying it was concerned the procedure may have been done improperly. That set off a state inquiry on Feb. 2.
"The results of that investigation are still under review and any deficiencies or penalty letters are still pending," said Nathan Rudy, spokesman for the state Department of Health.
The investigation did, however, prompt health officials to move up their routine licensing survey of the clinic, to Feb. 22 and 23. As a result of that probe, health officials closed the facility, finding violations that posed "immediate and serious risk of harm to patients." Its concerns included infection control and the use and care of instruments and equipment.
The closure is only the second time in the last five years that the department has shut down one of the state's 619 ambulatory care facilities for "deficient care."
The Dinkins case is reminiscent of one in 1993, when a 20-year-old college student from Newark died within hours of undergoing an abortion at Metropolitan Medical.
The Bergen County medical examiner eventually ruled the death accidental and said the woman died of hemorrhaging from a uterine perforation. Health officials cleared the clinic of any wrongdoing, concluding instead that the perforation was exacerbated by an underlying medical condition that ultimately caused her death.
Complications from abortions are extremely rare, so much so that they're generally considered safer than childbirth.
Dinkins' abortion occurred early in her second trimester of pregnancy, at 15 weeks. The Englewood clinic is one of only a few in the state to perform second-trimester abortions.
Lewis recalls that before her daughter went in for the procedure last month, the two women were in the kitchen joking. Much of the time Dinkins was in the waiting room, she chatted on her cellphone with her mom, eager to have the procedure behind her.
Now, Lewis tries to tend to Dinkins' 1-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter.
"I explain to her daughter that mommy's sick and that she's in the hospital and she'll get better," Lewis said. "She asks a lot of questions. I just say that mommy's tummy hurts."
The children haven't seen their mother since the abortion.
"This has been like hell for us," said Lewis, who lives with her daughter and grandchildren. "I've seen my baby nearly die. I prayed every night and every day."
On Friday, Dinkins awakened from her coma and was taken off the respirator. On Wednesday, she talked for the first time.
"I first saw Ms. Dinkins on Feb. 16," said Slater, a medical malpractice attorney. "She was completely ventilator-dependent, she was unconscious, she was swollen, she was hooked up to multiple machines and she was completely unresponsive.
"This isn't what she signed up for when she went in for that abortion."
__________________________________________________________State shuts abortion clinic over health risks
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State health officials have shut down one of New Jersey's largest abortion centers after finding violations at an Englewood clinic that posed "immediate and serious risk of harm to patients."
Metropolitan Medical Associates will remain closed until it corrects the deficiencies that prompted the closure, state officials said. State reports show the clinic performs more than 10,000 abortions a year.
The shutdown order cited problems "including but not limited to infection control, instruments, equipment used for sterilization of patient care use items and the processing of equipment."
The Department of Health and Senior Services refused to release the detailed list of violations to the public until the clinic has an opportunity to dispute the findings and the state issues its final report.
An order to halt medical services is extremely rare. This is only the second time in the last five years that the department has closed one of the state's 619 ambulatory-care facilities for "deficient care," said health department spokesman Nathan Rudy.
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