ALBANY, NY, April 10, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The New York State Health Commissioner has announced his resignation after a pro-life organization discovered that New York abortion facilities are less likely to be inspected than McDonald's restaurants.
The State Department of Health also announced all 25 abortion facilities it oversees will be reinspected.
Dr. Nirav Shah has announced that he will quit his position as commissioner, which he has held since 2011, in June. He cited the long-delayed decision over whether the state should move forward with fracking, something that has been under consideration since September 2012.
The pro-life Chiaroscuro Foundation received documents from a Freedom of Information Act request that found the state health department had inspected only 17 of the 25 abortion offices it oversees between 2000-2012. Only eight of those were inspected more than once in a dozen years.
In all, the state conducted only 45 abortion facility inspections in 12 years.
“The State Department of Health vigorously and aggressively investigates any and all allegations of physician misconduct, or complaints against a facility under its direct supervision,” State Department of Health official Bill Schwarz said. “This includes 22 complaints since 2005 against the 25 DOH-regulated facilities that provide reproductive health services -– all of which will also be subjected to re-inspection within the coming days.”
Although there are an estimated 225 abortion providers in the state, the health department only oversees 25 facilities that register as such. Some have not been inspected in years.
Rob Astorino, the Republican and Conservative Party candidate for governor, said in a video yesterday that he found it “alarming” that “neither the governor’s office nor the health department has yet to say a word about” the department's lack of oversight when it came to women's health.
“Regardless of anyone’s feelings about abortion, these clinics must be clean and safe to protect women who are receiving services there, yet the State Health Department has completely ignored its responsibility to ensure that.”
Not inspecting abortionists is “how the horrific Gosnell case in Pennsylvania occurred. That can’t be allowed to happen in New York,” he said.
“In the very few inspections it did over the past dozen years, the New York State Health Department found egregious sanitary violations at clinics – cringeworthy violations – yet the Department refuses to tell women at which clinics those violations occurred. These are medical facilities,” Astorino added. “Women have the right to know which have been inspected, which ones haven’t, and what type of violations have been recorded.”
“I am calling on Commissioner Shah to resign as State Health Commissioner. And if he refuses, I call on Governor Cuomo to replace him,” he concluded.
Just hours later, Shah announced his resignation.
Shah will be replaced by Dr. Howard Zucker.
“Commissioner Shah's resignation is warranted, but the situation remains the same: The vast majority of New York's 225 abortion clinics haven't been inspected for more than a dozen years, and that poses a significant health risk to women receiving services at them,” Astorino said after hearing of the resignation. “The New York State Health Department needs to get its act together, and the ball now falls on the lap of incoming Commissioner Zucker.”
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The full video of Astorino's call for resignation is below: