Overland Park — If a woman has an abortion in Kansas, the room temperature will have to comfortable — between 68 and 73 degrees, in fact — under a new state health department rule taking effect in July.
The room where the abortion occurs also will have to have at least 150 square feet, excluding “fixed” cabinets, and come with its own janitor’s closet with 50 or more square feet. The provider will be required to keep 13 types of drugs on hand, along with blood pressure cuffs for adults, children and even infants and premature babies. Patients will have to remain in a recovery room for at least two hours afterward.
The new regulations for abortion providers in Kansas are more specific in places than they are for hospitals and ambulatory surgical centers, and more detailed than the rules for most clinics and offices in which doctors perform many surgical procedures.
The new regulations will be scrutinized closely in coming weeks, perhaps in court. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment is imposing the rules under a new state law, also taking effect July 1, establishing a special licensing process for abortion providers.
‘Safe, reliable health care’
The rules set requirements for room sizes and the number of bathrooms and janitor’s closets for each abortion provider, and list required medications and equipment.
“Implementing the new regulations has been consistent with the work KDHE is already doing to ensure Kansans have safe, reliable health care in all facilities within KDHE’s purview,” said department Secretary Robert Moser, himself a physician.
The state’s three abortion providers, all in the Kansas City area, view the regulations as unnecessary and burdensome by design. Gov. Sam Brownback is an anti-abortion Republican, and abortion opponents pushed the law through the GOP-controlled Legislature.
The providers need a special license from the health department to keep performing abortions as of July 1. A Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri clinic in Overland Park underwent a two-day state inspection last week, and an inspection of the Women’s Health Center, also in Overland Park, is set to start Wednesday.
The health department rejected a license for the Aid for Women clinic in Kansas City, Kan., without an inspection, based on information it included in its application. Abortion rights supporters fear the other two providers won’t get licenses either, however their inspections turn out.
“The right to abortion services in Kansas is at stake,” said Cheryl Pilate, Aid for Women’s attorney.
Different standards
The health department regulates more than 230 hospitals and ambulatory surgical centers, which include the Planned Parenthood clinic. The state’s other two abortion providers are among dozens of other offices and clinics falling under rules for office-based surgeries set by the State Board of Healing Arts, which regulates physicians.
Pilate said Aid for Women disclosed in its application that its clinic needs extensive renovations to comply with the health department regulations for abortion providers.
The health department’s regulations for hospitals and surgical centers don’t include specific room sizes. Instead, they’re tied to standards from the American Institute of Architects for medical facilities, which call for at least 360 square feet of unrestricted space for surgery rooms. But those standards apply to new construction.
Specific room-temperature requirements don’t appear in the standards for hospitals, surgical centers or office-based surgery sites. For abortion providers, the regulations even differ for procedure rooms and recovery rooms, where the temperature must be between 70 degrees and 75 degrees.
Joseph Kroll, the director of the health department bureau that drafted the regulations, said it tried to set a “gold standard” for patients.
But abortion rights supporters contend the real goal is to keep existing providers form performing abortions and to make it impossible for doctors to open new abortion clinics.
“The state of Kansas has taken itself to shut down abortion providers,” said Julie Burkhart, founder of the political action committee Trust Women.
National Abortion Federation guidelines
Mary Kay Culp, executive director of the anti-abortion group Kansans for Life, said the Kansas regulations draw on standards set by the National Abortion Federation, the professional association for providers.
“If they are the model medical clinics they always claimed they are, these regulations should not be a problem,” Culp said.
The federation’s latest clinical policy guidelines touch on some of the same subjects as the new Kansas regulations, such as controlling infections and managing medical risks. They also recommend drugs and equipment to be used in particular circumstances.
But the federation’s guidelines focus more on individual procedures and don’t discuss clinic buildings. In standards for post-operative care, the federation says patients can’t be discharged until they are mobile, their pulse and blood pressure are stable and their pain and bleeding are under control. But the standards don’t set a minimum time in the recovery room.
The health department’s standards for surgical centers also don’t set a minimum recovery time. They say a patient who has received anesthesia “shall be discharged in the company of a responsible adult,” though the attending physician can waive the requirement.
There is no specific recovery-time guideline in the office-based surgery rules, either.
Providers and abortion rights advocates equate first-trimester abortions — the vast majority of those performed in Kansas — with other, minor office-based procedures. Dr. Herbert Hodes, who performs abortions at the Women’s Health Center, said the most common procedure there can be done in 2 minutes or less.
“It’s certainly less complicated than pulling all four wisdom teeth,” he said.
But a conflicting view of abortion led the backers of the new regulations to push for the law under which they were drafted. And Kansas will have significantly different rules for abortion providers than for physicians performing other office-based surgeries, or for surgical centers and hospitals.
Comments
just_another_bozo_on_this_bus 1 year, 10 months ago
Unless comparable rules are developed for every medical clinic in the state, then it's clear that these rules are designed to prevent abortions, not make them safer.
kansanjayhawk 1 year, 10 months ago
This law is designed to prevent unsanitary conditions that exist in some of the clinics!
vertigo 1 year, 10 months ago
Yes because we know a room with 149 square feet is unsanitary, but add in 1 more extra square foot and it magically becomes sanitary.
We're wizards!
grammaddy 1 year, 10 months ago
And closet size has sooo much to do with sanitary conditions.
rbwaa 1 year, 10 months ago
What about making the rules for child care facilities more stringent as well as increasing the frequency of inspection. What about the children who die in substandard chilldcare locations especially in home daycare? Obviously anti-abortion individuals care more about fetuses than they do about children.
kansanjayhawk 1 year, 10 months ago
I think you are wrong because many of us support both...
Corey Williams 1 year, 10 months ago
Now you're both just being silly.
And kansanjayhawk, if "many of us support both" then why don't any of you make more noise about it?
Joe Hyde 1 year, 10 months ago
The state's new abortion regulations virtually amount to a deliberate act of aggravated assault on pregnant women. I'm speaking of the new requirement that all surgery rooms in abortion clinics must feature a janitor closet. A janitor closet!
Custodial methods and cleaning products have improved much in recent decades; nevertheless, due to the very nature of cleanup work a janitor closet contains a wide variety of dangerous pathogens that cling to the cleaning equipment, and the closet is where many volatile cleaning products are stored. To have a 50 s/f janitor closet -- or any size janitor closet -- physically adjoining a 150 s/f surgical operating room is reckless and poses a direct threat to the woman whose pregnancies are being lawfully terminated. Women using these clinics will be put a high risk of suffering a life-threatening internal infection due to airborne pathogens and/or chemical elements escaping from that closet.
Based on this insanely dangerous and reckless regulatory decree -- which if conformed to by the clinics will threaten abortion-seeking clients and expose doctors to malpractice suits -- there must be a federal injunction sought against the state of Kansas immediately.
kansanjayhawk 1 year, 10 months ago
Every other clinic in Kansas has to meet similar regs. wake up and read your health care facility requirements such as those required to have an ambulatory surgical center in this state they are very rigorous. Take the case to court it will uphold the right of the State of Kansas to protect our citizens in this way.
vertigo 1 year, 10 months ago
"read your health care facility requirements such as those required to have an ambulatory surgical center in this state they are very rigorous"
The same regulations that abortion clinics operated under... but on another thread you said they were inadequate, now you claim the regulations that abortion clinics (and other ambulatory surgical centers) operated under are "rigorous".
So which is it?
usnsnp 1 year, 10 months ago
These regulations are not to improve safety for women, it is to stop all abortions. So much for seperation of church and state.
kansanjayhawk 1 year, 10 months ago
These regulations do not ban abortion. These regulations do provide that this legal option will be provide in a "safe" manner. Both pro-life and pro-choice persons should support reasonable regulations to provide that these clinics meet a min. standard of medical care.
Kathy Getto 1 year, 10 months ago
They also took it upon themselves to "define" an "unborn child" as a living individual organism of the species homo sapiens, in utero, at any stage of gestation from fertilization to birth.
kansanjayhawk 1 year, 10 months ago
I think most Kansans would agree with that definition...
capshroud 1 year, 10 months ago
As an architect I resent referencing the American Institute of Architects as a source for these ginned up "standards". They obviously scanned through various materials used requirements out of context ... as long as they would be impossible for most clinics to meet.
This is an inexcusable misuse of statutory powers, but then again, most zealots can justify any twisting and abuse of authority to achieve their ends.
kansanjayhawk 1 year, 10 months ago
I disagree with you--I believe this is a very reasonable use of the law--to protect our citizens against some of these quacks who hurt women!
Paul R. Getto 1 year, 10 months ago
Capshroud: Key, word, zealot. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/zealot. Ironic that it comes from the ancient jewish tradition. The Christiban trying to take over Kansas and America is, indeed, populated by zealots. I can hardly wait for the right people to save us from ourselves. If they reach their ultimate goal, sanctifying fertilized eggs, will a woman who has a spontaneous abortion be arrested for involuntary manslaughter? The laws of unintended consequences mean little to zealots who are possessed of the revealed truth, but the rest of of the system will struggle with much of their agenda. The war on women is just the first volley.
kansanjayhawk 1 year, 10 months ago
We all have the right to our opinion on these issues don't we? The only war on women that I have seen is the war against them by the abortion industry that wants to go on perferating uteruses, sterilizing women, or in some cases women still are dying.
Corey Williams 1 year, 10 months ago
Everyone has a right to their own opinion. But your right to have an opinion stops where my right to have an opinion starts. To push your opinion on others that don't share your views is Never mind. You haven't gotten it yet, you never will.
kansanjayhawk 1 year, 10 months ago
The reality is that these are reasonable regulations on abortion. The Supreme Court has upheld the right of legislatures to place reasonable health and safety related regulations on abortion.This law does not prohibit abortion but it insists that when they are performed that they must meet certain min. medical standards of care. The clinics must be clean and sanitary and must not place women seeking abortions at risk. The need for this law in Kansas was evidenced by the KCK clinic at which a rat was found in the hallway and very unsanitary conditions for a health care facility. No clinic should act surprised about the passage of the law because Kansans elected a pro-life governor and a solid pro-life Senate and House. Kansas will now move toward doing the max. to restrict abortion that is allowed by recent Supreme Court decisions and if you don't like it you can go to the polls and try to persuade your fellow Kansans it is a mistake! However, I am convinced that most Kansans are reasonable people and have no objection to this type of reasonable approach to abortion regulation!
Corey Williams 1 year, 10 months ago
Let's see some links: where was the rat found? Which of the new regulations actually have anything to do with cleanliness?
deec 1 year, 10 months ago
So after the pro-birthers get their way and nearly all abortions are performed in back rooms, and red blankets become the norm again, then we'll see how much the pro-birthers care about women's health. "One stark indication of the prevalence of illegal abortion was the death toll. In 1930, abortion was listed as the official cause of death for almost 2,700 women—nearly one-fifth (18%) of maternal deaths recorded in that year. "http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/06/1/gr060108.html
vertigo 1 year, 10 months ago
From this mornings KC Star front page: "No Kansas abortion clinic has met the state's new licensing rules, raising the prospect that by Friday, Kansas will be the on;y state where women cannot get an abortion."
Yeah, so much for "we're just trying to make it safer and not trying to eliminate it" argument.
It was evident from the onset that none of these clinics would be allowed to pass inspection thus forcing them to stop.
kansanjayhawk 1 year, 10 months ago
Well I guess Planned Parenthood's clinic squeaked thru--the issue involved in this law is cleanliness medical care for women--it has nothing to do with abortion itself!
vertigo 1 year, 10 months ago
So what makes a 149 square foot procedure room unclean, but a 150 square foot procedure room clean?
grammaddy 1 year, 10 months ago
I second that!!
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