FORT WAYNE, IN (Indiana's NewsCenter) --- A patient safety ordinance proposed in Fort Wayne appears to be prompting the Indiana State Medical Association to push harder for oversight of doctors who don't have ties to local hospitals.
A vote taken Sunday by the governing body of the state medical association could close a loophole, through support of a greater level of regulation over procedures such as abortion.
Abortion rights advocates are always leery of law changes effecting abortions.
Planned Parenthood of Indiana spoke out two and a half weeks ago against a patient safety ordinance being considered by the Allen County Commissioners that would require doctors performing various gynecological procedures to have ties to a Fort Wayne hospital.
A South Bend physician routinely drives here to do abortions.
The state medical association instead wants physicians who don’t have admitting privileges to local hospitals to be subjected to investigations by the Attorney General and medical licensing board in cases where patients experience complications.
The greater scrutiny of these bad outcomes would avoid local governments being in charge of doctor reviews, which Allen County’s Health Commissioner fears could cause problems.
Dr. Deborah McMahan/Allen County Health Commissioner: " You'll have a patchwork of ordinances that may or may not really address the issue which is itinerate medicine and a lack of peer review. I think that the Indiana State Medical Association wants to be involved, we see that patient safety is really important to us."
Betty Cockrum: " We're encouraged that the ISMA believes that these matters are best left to those state regulatory bodies that are already equipped to respond, and we're encouraged that they're proposing that all doctors performing surgical procedures be tracked and reviewed."
Cockrum is referring to all doctors, as opposed to just abortion doctors.
Allen County officials may still enact a new patient safety ordinance on the local level.
Commissioner Nelson Peters believes that could be a wise move in the short run, since it may take a year or more for tougher regulations to kick in on the state level.
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