Robert Alexander’s abortion clinic was shut down in December by the city of Muskegon, Michigan after unsafe and unsanitary conditions were found. Now, state officials are wondering why the state medical board has not terminated Alexander’s medical license.
The state legislature had planned to hold a hearing on Tuesday on Alexander and a Muskegon OB/GYN was expected to testify at the hearing. Instead, the doctor wrote that Alexander should have his license revoked.
The doctor talked about one case in particular as a reason why, saying Alexander botched an abortion on a woman in her second trimester.
“Dr. Alexander perforated the woman’s uterus so badly that it was hanging on by two blood vessels,” he wrote. “The decapitated head of a fetus was in the woman’s abdomen and the large intestine had been grasped and pulled away from its blood supply and into the vagina. The woman required a hysterectomy, colonoscopy and several units of blood to save her life. “I for one, was very happy to hear he is no longer practicing in Muskegon, but I fear for women anywhere this man would go.”
A local television news report has more on the effort by state lawmakers to draw attention to Alexander, who has been called Michigan’s Kermit Gosnell. https://www.woodtv.com/dpp/news/target_8/senators-policing-of-doctors-flawed
Target 8 in February exposed how an apparent conflict of interest allowed Muskegon abortion clinic Dr. Robert Alexander to continue to practice after complaints against him were not investigated.
Those complaints — about alleged botched abortions — were closed out by the then state Board of Medicine Chairman Dr. George Shade. It was the same Dr. Shade who, several years earlier, helped Alexander get his medical license back after Alexander had served time in prison for selling illegal prescriptions.
On Tuesday, the state Senate Judiciary Committee projected Target 8’s story onto a wall of a hearing room for senators to watch.
Committee members said the report raised serious questions about a conflict of interest and about how the state Board of Medicine and the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) polices doctors.
“When you have a case like this go out there, it puts them all under a cloud so to speak,” Sen. Steve Bieda (D-Warren) said. “It also puts the whole system under the cloud. It looks like a good old boy network.”
It could lead to a law requiring more than one member of the Board of Medicine review complaints against medical professionals.
“I definitely think there has to be sweeping changes,” said Sen. Tonya Schuitmaker (R-Lawton), who pushed for Tuesday’s hearing.
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