Planned Parenthood: "Not Our Fault Known Quack Screwed Up in Our Clinic"

Background

In the summer of 1992,  Dr. Delhi Elmore Thweatt, Jr., was preparing to perform an abortion on 32-year-old Kelly Morse. Kelly had indicated on her intake forms that she was allergic to the "cain" medications, but Thweatt administered Lidocaine anyway, resulting in Kelly's death.

Delhi Thweatt

Court documents in the resulting lawsuit indicate that the abortion clinic in question had advertised Thweatt as being a Board-certified ob/gyn, yet "Defendant Thweatt failed the Ob/Gyn Board certification examination not once, not twice, but on three consecutive attempts...Defendant Thweatt failed his Board certification exam even after a fourth attempt, following his deposition of July 27, 1997."

On April 20, 1999, Thweatt and Hillcrest settled out of court with Kelly's husband. Her two children, a boy and a girl, were left motherless.

The Pennsylvania Medical Board and Maryland Medical Board show no disciplinary actions against Thweatt..

So is it any surprise that he continued to commit malpractice?

And is it any surprise that, regardless of what he had done to Kelly, he was hired by Planned Parenthood of Maryland, working at their Baltimore location? 

What Happened at Planned Parenthood

Baltimore Planned Parenthood

On August 9 of 1996, Viki Jackson went to the Baltimore Planned Parenthood for an abortion, which was performed by Thweatt.

Nobody bothered to do a pathology report on what Thweatt had removed during the abortion. Thus, nobody told Viki that the embryo had not been in her uterus at all. It was in her fallopian tube.

On August 20, Viki returned to Planned Parenthood, reporting severe pain and bleeding. To their credit at this point, they at least didn't reassure her and send her home with Tylenol. They told her to go to University Hospital. 

There she underwent surgery for a ruptured ectopic pregnancy.

She could very well have died.

Planned Parenthood's defense was two pronged:

1. Thweatt was an independent contractor so they weren't responsible for what he did or didn't do when he was working at their facility.
2. It wasn't their fault the embryo wasn't in Viki's uterus.

Does anybody honestly believe that Planned Parenthood held no responsibility for ensuring that their doctor did his job, and that they had policies and procedures for screening for ectopic pregnancy?

Epilogue

Planned Parenthood of Baltimore didn't seem to learn much from getting sued. In February of 2013 they were smacked down after an inspection and told that they need to submit a plan of correction because of multiple deficiencies including inadequately trained nursing staff, failure to train staff on protocols for transferring patients to a hospital, staff with no current CPR certification, and the doctors discharging patients without documenting a proper discharge diagnosis. 

They were smacked down again in 2018 for failing to dispose of expired medications, using the same syringe and vial to draw medications for multiple patients, and failure to dispose of expired sterile single-use equipment. 

Source: Jackson v. Thweatt and Planned Parenthood, Baltimore City Circuit Court Case 98225104/CC7036