"No Cat Urine" Equals Mayo Clinic Standards?
There's clean. And then there's Mayo Clinic clean.
During Monday's opening arguments in the trial of "House of Horrors" doc Kermit Gosnell, his defense attorney, Jack McMahon, defended the deplorable condition of Gosnell's West Philly abortion clinic. He said the prosecution's experts unfairly expected Gosnell to uphold "Mayo Clinic standards" at the clinic he ran for poor women in the "nitty-gritty" neighborhood of tk.
"They don't run an urban clinic; a low-cost, urban, poverty-stricken clinic," McMahon said. "They want to put Mayo Clinic standards on a West Philadelphia clinic. If you want Mayo Clinic standards, go to the Mayo Clinic."
The way he said it, you'd think that every non-Mayo Clinic abortion center is as filthy as Gosnell's Women's Medical Center was at 38th and Lancaster. Here's how the hell-hole was described in the DA's 2011 grand jury report:
"The clinic reeked of animal urine, courtesy of the cats that were allowed to roam
(and defecate) freely. Furniture and blankets were stained with blood. Instruments were
not properly sterilized. Disposable medical supplies were not disposed of; they were
reused, over and over again. Medical equipment – such as the defibrillator, the EKG, the
pulse oximeter, the blood pressure cuff – was generally broken; even when it worked, it
wasn't used. The emergency exit was padlocked shut. And scattered throughout, in
cabinets, in the basement, in a freezer, in jars and bags and plastic jugs, were fetal
remains. It was a baby charnel house."
Who knew that basic cleanliness was a "Mayo Clinic standard"?