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Monday, September 13, 2010

Operation Rescue got the dirt on Brigham: Waste disposal and recovery room logs

I recommend that you read the entire report.

In short, the Elkton facility was just a satellite of Brigham's Voorhees, NJ facility. It was just there to circumvent New Jersey law. Brigham and his staff would caravan down with the patients. Brigham hired an elderly and disabled doctor, licensed in Maryland, to have somebody on paper who was legal to practice, but Brigham did a lot of the work himself. The injured woman, D.B., was under the impression that Brigham was training Riley when the abortion was being performed.

Now, let's look at some very interesting documents: The Elkton Medical Waste Logs and Recovery Room Logs. Among other things, they show gestational age and "total sample weight" -- which would be the weight of the pieces of fetus and, I suppose, the placenta. The weights ranged from 152 grams for patient MR's 15.4 week baby, aborted on August 6, to 2,946 grams for SF's 33 week baby, aborted July 30. This baby weighed more than the 2,500 grams (5.5 lbs.) that's the cut-off for a "low birth weight" baby. This was the only baby whose weight was in the normal range for a term infant.

"Very low birth weight" is less than 1,500 grams. 4 of the babies would be in this range had they been delivered alive.

My friend's daughter weighed 380 grams at birth. Fifteen of the 30 babies tossed out in Elkton's medical waste outweighed her.

The dates on the logs indicate that the records are incomplete. There are some days where there is a recovery room log, but no waste disposal noted. There are dates where there are babies disposed of, but we don't have recovery room logs.

The babies on the medical waste log range from 15 weeks to 23 weeks. The moms on the recovery room logs range from 15 weeks to 36 weeks.

Other points of interest:

Dr. Shepperd, who was disabled and unable to do any actual procedures, is listed as the doctor on the medical waste logs and on most of the recovery room logs.

There's not a payment amount noted for every patient, but for those for whom it is noted, the fees ranged from $745 for patient TW, whose 15.5 week baby was aborted on July 16, to $2,645 for patient LN, whose 23.2 week baby was aborted on July 2.

"Grace" was the most frequent notation for both "Chart #" and "Payment Amount". I'm guessing that Grace is a staff member who handled those patients, or at least handled their finances.

Make of all of this what you will.

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