A new Legislative Audit Council report on DHEC’s regulation of abortion clinics in South Carolina found shortcomings that, if not addressed, could result in serious problems for patients. State law requires the state Department of Health and Environmental Control to regulate the state’s three abortion clinics.
The audit says state law requires DHEC to inspect each clinic once a year, but of the 42 annual inspections DHEC should have done between 2001 and 2014, the agency could only provide 33 inspection reports. “So that’s telling us that perhaps they’re not being done as they’re supposed to be,” says Marcia Lindsay, deputy director of the Legislative Audit Council.
The audit says DHEC inspectors are allowed to review as few as three patient files during an inspection to determine whether a clinic is following state law. “There could be serious problems and not know because you’re not looking at enough patient files. So if you don’t know if the clinics are handling those patients appropriately by looking at what’s in the files, then DHEC really can’t make a determination whether or not everything is in order and safe for patients,” Lindsay says. She says each of the three clinics performs around 2,000 abortions a year, so looking at only three patient files is nowhere near enough for a valid statistical sample.
The audit also found that DHEC needs to improve its complaints process by maintaining documentation of all complaints, and that the agency has no policy for how it would handle accidents or incidents at abortion clinics.
The report also says DHEC has no policies or procedures in place for training inspectors, and the agency does not require its inspectors to have any medical training. After the audit was underway, the report says DHEC started a new training process for inspectors, including a training manual.
DHEC gave a nine-page written response to the audit, saying the report’s numbers about its inspection reports are inaccurate. It also says the department is in the midst of ongoing quality improvement, and, since it’s ongoing, auditors “did not obtain a final product but only a snapshot of a work-in-progress.”
As for training its inspectors, DHEC says it has finished its training manual and ensures that everyone performing an abortion clinic inspection is a Registered Nurse.
You can read the entire audit report, and DHEC’s response here.
