No ruling today on abortionist Neuhaus at Kansas Med Board review
12/23/2014 10:00
by Kathy Ostrowski
Photo above: Kris Neuhaus at Dec. 11th hearing.
After presentations from attorneys on both sides, the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts deferred a ruling on the matter of abortionist Kris Neuhaus, whose license they had revoked in 2012. Neuhaus wants to regain her license and not pay the original $95,000 in assessed court costs.
After presentations from attorneys on both sides, the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts deferred a ruling on the matter of abortionist Kris Neuhaus, whose license they had revoked in 2012. Neuhaus wants to regain her license and not pay the original $95,000 in assessed court costs.
From 1999-2006, Neuhaus provided the legally-required "second-physician approval" for post-viability abortions performed by the now-deceased Wichita abortionist, George Tiller. At issue were 11 such abortions in 2003, performed on teens in the third trimester. The Board issued license revocation for her failure to follow the standard of care in those cases.
Neuhaus won a reprieve of that revocation from Shawnee District Court Judge Franklin Theis, who ruled that --although her record-keeping was deficient--the revocation was too severe a penalty and the Board must revisit the case.
The Board met on Dec 11th and allowed the public to hear the presentations from Neuhaus' attorney, Bob Eye, and their own counsel, Reese Hayes, as well as questions from Board members. At a few points, Neuhaus called from the audience that she wanted to address the Board, and they permitted her a few statements, which were promptly struck from the record as improper and irrelevant.
The Board then recessed to conference in private and then announced their decision would not be issued today.
Hayes' recommendation to the Board is that Neuhaus is defiant, and cannot be rehabilitated. He reminded that the 2003 case is Neuhaus' "third strike" as the Board had disciplined her in 1999 and 2001 for similar record-keeping failures.
By her own admission, Neuhaus' omission of essential information and assessments in the teen abortion files was intentional, yet, due to earlier misconduct, was under a legal agreement with the Board to faithfully execute state regulations for patient charting.
Hayes urged the Board to follow their own disciplinary guidelines, and include the "aggravating" factors that justified license revocation. That included the vulnerability of inexperienced and immature teens diagnosed with mental health problems but left without accurate medical files necessary to obtain proper follow-up medical care.
Neuhaus' attorney, Bob Eye, hammered on the idea that Nauhaus wants to continue in the medical field and that her actions in 2003 were described as not "nefarious" by Judge Theis.
Board member, Anne Hodgson, objected, asserting that the matter at hand was Neuhaus' willful disobedience of the law and the Board.
Kathy Ostrowski is legislative director at Kansans for Life