Delaware Planned Parenthood faces more claims of mismanagement

Former Delaware Planned Parenthood manager Melody Meanor added new accusations against the group’s already battered Wilmington facility during a public hearing Tuesday, claiming it mismanaged STD and colposcopy test results.

Two other former employees, Joyce Vasikonis and Jayne Mitchell-Werbrich, previously testified about the Wilmington center’s “meat-market style assembly-line abortions” this spring. They joined Meanor at the hearing.

Meanor claims 200 positive test results for chlamydia or gonorrhea were never reported to patients between November 2011 and May 2012. She added that 87 women who had colposcopies to test for cervical cancer were not contacted about irregular results. WDDE, Delaware’s NPR News station, reports that Meanor’s boss, Gloria Johnson, took the results and never properly filed them.

According to Meanor, the clinic also violated grant guidelines—borrowing against the grants to cover payroll expenses.

Delaware public health officials said during the hearing that they have no evidence to support Meanor’s claims. Ruth Lytle-Barnaby, CEO of Planned Parenthood’s Delaware clinics, also claims the accusations are unfounded. In a statement on Tuesday, she said, “As we have previously publicly stated, our high standards were not consistently met in the past and we have taken rigorous steps to address all outstanding issues.” She added that the facilities have instituted new policies and reviewed all patients with positive results from STD testing in order to contact them directly, even in instances of uncertainty.

Both Vasikonis and Mitchell-Werbrich still support abortion but think Planned Parenthood should be shut down because of its growing reputation for mismanagement and mistreatment of women. “I don’t even know that Planned Parenthood is actually the organization that needs to continue on, because their higher ups are not honest. I think they need to be closed,” Mitchell-Werbrich said.

They said their concerns were dismissed by Planned Parenthood’s officials for months until authorities got involved, according to reports on Delaware Online.

Delaware State Sen. Greg Lavelle, a Republican, told WDDE that his goal is not to ban abortion in Delaware. His concern is patient care and protection. He told Delaware Online that organizationally, Planned Parenthood got lazy, “and it shows.”