Lori+Matijkiw

I am using the  Grand Jury Report on the crimes of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell as the basis of this Wiki. I will add material to support my contention that though Gosnell is beyond the pale, this is mainly in the way he combined and refined aspects of the ghoulish and callous disregard for humanity often seen in abortionists. He was hardly a pioneer.

In order to distinguish between my own writings, and those of the Grand Jury, I will use a different font that makes the Grand Jury Report appear to be typed.

Lori Matijkiw deserves special mention as being one of the few government employees -- and indeed, the //only// employee of the City of Philadelphia mentioned by the Grand Jury -- for having noticed and reported Gosnell's filthy clinic. Although her "job description" was merely to conduct a vaccine inspection, since Gosnell's clinic also gave vaccines among other non-abortion related functions, she went above and beyond that narrow duty. As the Grand Jury said, "She took seriously her broader duty to protect public health. Following her visit to Gosnell’s facility, she reported on a multitude of deficiencies she found. "

In 2008 and 2009, she conducted two visits to the clinic. At the first visit, she reported by email to her superiors, Program Manager Lisa Morgan and Medical Director Dr. Barbara Watson, that she had trouble even scheduling an appointment at the clinic. During the visit, Matijkiw wrote down "everything she observed ," not limiting herself strictly to only what pertained to the vaccine program.

She noted that the office was “not clean at all, and many areas of the office smell like urine.” She reported a “dark layer of dust” on the baseboards and described the “enormous” fish tanks, filled with murky water. In the refrigerator, she found expired vaccines – one with an expiration date of March 2006, another 2005. The temperature log, which was supposed to record the refrigerator temperature every day, had not been marked since the second day of June – a month and a half earlier. On top of the refrigerator, she found a stack of temperature logs, already filled out, showing readings twice a day, with no initials, time, or month.

Matijkiw wrote that Tina Baldwin showed her to a freezer in a “lab” (quotation marks are in the original email) on the second floor. Inside she found “3-4 large plastic containers with blood-colored frozen contents, wrapped in blue chux.” She described a “red fluid spilled/frozen on the floor of the freezer.” Chicken pox vaccines were stored in an ice tray above the containers of bloody fetuses.

The clinic staff told Matijkiw that “Dr. Massof” had left abruptly in June and that Gosnell was unfamiliar with the program. When Matijkiw asked to see files showing vaccines administered, the staff told her they had none. She reported to her bosses that she looked up Gosnell on the state website and found that he had been disciplined in the past.

Based on Matijkiw’s report, the city health department suspended Family Medical Society – once again – from the vaccine program, but took no further action.

 On October 7, 2009, Matijkiw returned to the clinic. Again she wrote a scathing report, addressed, again, to her supervisor, Lisa Morgan. In it Matijkiw described a two-hour meeting with “(Dr.) O’Neill” (the parentheses were in her original email). During the visit, Matijkiw learned that O’Neill had no understanding of the vaccine program. O’Neill reportedly believed that the free children’s vaccines could be given to adult patients and to those with private insurance. Matijkiw noticed that one of the free vaccines was given to Gosnell’s daughter.

In addition, Matijkiw noticed that the clinic listed 20 children on Keystone Mercy, a Medicaid health plan. Matijkiw wrote that three of the “children” were almost 19 years old, and one had private insurance through Aetna. She wondered if any of them had ever been in the clinic. She also said that O’Neill was improperly trying to count abortion patients as vaccination patients.

In response to questioning by Matijkiw, O’Neill admitted that she was not licensed in Pennsylvania. She falsely claimed to have had a Delaware license, which she said she let lapse. When Matijkiw asked who in the practice treated children, O’Neill replied: “They don’t come in.” Yet Gosnell and O’Neill claimed to be providers of children’s vaccines.

Again Matijkiw documented the dirtiness of the facility, the murky fish and turtle tanks, the expired vaccines, and the lack of temperature logs. In addition, this time, she reported seeing patients being escorted into the procedure area when Gosnell was not in the clinic. Matijkiw concluded her report to her boss: “If Dr. Gosnell was out of the office and [O’Neill] had to call the other physician’s assistant on his cell phone and leave a message for his MA#, why were patients in the procedure area?”

Matijkiw’s email to Morgan should have resulted in immediate action. Just like her report the year before should have triggered a response. If nothing else, Matijkiw’s supervisors should have passed her information about the unsanitary conditions and the fetuses in the freezer to another division within the city health department with jurisdiction over such matters.

They should also have reported Gosnell and O’Neill to the Department of State’s Board of Medicine, based on the evidence apparent to Matijkiw that patients were being treated in Gosnell’s absence and that O’Neill was practicing without a license. Yet the city health department did nothing.

A month after Matijkiw’s second visit to the clinic, Mrs. Mongar died. A month after that, in December 2009, a notation in Philadelphia Department of Public Health records stated: “Site will not be enrolled in [the Vaccine for Children program] after Matijkiw’s visits. We will pick up any wasted vaccines in January. Jim is reporting Dr. to state licensing.”

The Grand Jury noted problems in information-sharing, saying that when Matijkiw, working for one unit in the Division of Disease Control, "discovered infectious waste in the freezer," that information should have been, but never was sent to the Environmental Engineering Section, another unit in the Division of Disease Control. The Report sums up the section by saying:

One diligent employee, Lori Matijkiw, who reported what she saw, expected her supervisors to do something. They did nothing.