By Dave Andrusko
In an order issued this week, Judge W. David Watkins recommended that the Florida Board of Medicine suspend abortionist Christopher Saputa’s medical license for one year “after patients at a Pensacola abortion clinic suffered complications that required hospitalization” and permanently ban him from performing obstetric and gynecological surgeries, according to The Tampa Free Press.
“Under administrative law, the recommended order will go to the Florida Board of Medicine for a final decision,” Liz Shultz reported.
Last month the state Agency for Health Care Administration issued a final order revoking the license of the Pensacola clinic, which did business as American Family Planning.
Saputa worked for the “abortion facility in Pensacola, which the state shut down last May for ‘endangering the health, safety and welfare’ of its patients,” Micaiah Bilger reported. “State health officials said the abortion facility had hundreds of safety violations, the worst involving nearly killing three women in botched abortions within a span of nine months” [].
The News Journal reported last year that “three women nearly died from abortion complications at the facility: one required resuscitation, another had parts of her colon removed and a third needed an emergency hysterectomy.”
Florida’s Agency for Healthcare Administration issued an emergency order to suspend the clinic’s operations until an administrative hearing could be held in Tallahassee, Jim Little reported.
“The order details three cases where the doctor and staff at the clinic failed to report necessary hospitalizations of the three patients within the 10 days required and failed to keep any record of the patients’ vital signs during the procedures.”
The third patient “passed out in the car and made gurgling sounds” according to the report. When she arrived at USA Children’s and Women’s Hospital, an hour and 15 minutes away, surgeons estimated the patient had lost 3,500 ml of blood and was minutes away from death. She was advised not to get pregnant again.”
Interviewed about the case, Saputa
pushed blame to the facility, the report said. He also said he had not read the facilities’ procedures on emergency management. The report also indicates several times when Saputa kept poor records or none at all on patients.
The report also noted that Saputa did not have the education, training, or experience to provide gynecological surgeries or procedures. Having unrestricted practice as a medical doctor would be a “serious danger to the health, safety, or welfare” to Florida citizens, the report said.
“The fact that Dr. Saputa experienced all three of these complications within weeks of each other indicates that he lacks the technical skill to be able to safely practice gynecological procedures,” the report said.