“We’ll be objecting to the magistrate’s decision,” she said. “The judge will rule on those objections, and until he does, the stay that allows the clinic to remain open is still in place.”
Judge Jerome Metz has scheduled a hearing in the case for Aug. 15, and Langsam said he indicated he will render a decision either that day or soon after.
The crux of the case is the state department of health denied the clinic’s license renewal in January because the clinic cannot get an emergency patient transfer agreement with any of the local hospitals. State-funded hospitals are not allowed to take in abortion clinic patients and none of the private hospitals would issue agreements either, Langsam said.
Clinics can apply for a variance from transfer agreement rule if they have a back-up system in place. The clinic has three physicians, who have hospital privileges and can admit patients to the hospital in an emergency. The clinic was granted a variance in 2010 and 2011, but the director of the state health department decided to non-renew and revoke the clinic’s license in 2012 because the clinic cannot get a transfer agreement with any hospital.
The magistrate agreed with the director.
“Where an administrative order is supported by reliable, probative and substantial evidence and is in accordance with law, a court may not substitute its judgment for that of the agency, but must affirm the order,” Bachman wrote.
Langsam said she has not discussed with her client what he will do if the judge upholds the magistrate’s ruling. In a transcript of a court hearing when the magistrate ruled from the bench that the state was correct last month, Bachman said he expects the case to make its way up to the Ohio Supreme Court.
If the clinic is eventually shuttered, Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio Region will be the only surgical center performing abortions in Cincinnati. Rick Pender with Planned Parenthood said they used to have a transfer agreement with the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, until the state changed the law last summer.
He said the state has been sitting on their license renewal and variance request for over a year. He said the owner of the Lebanon Road clinic also has a clinic in Centerville that is being “threatened but it is not the object of the court proceedings.”
The state health department did not respond to questions about Planned Parenthood’s license renewal and variance request.
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