While I understand the legal basis of the petition, I can not support the amendment of hospital regulations to conform to the absurd new interpretation of law by the Attorney General’s office.  It is abhorrent that Ken Cuccinelli has placed all hospitals and medical facilities at risk by setting this legal precedence.

Women’s health care centers cannot be treated differently under the law. The final regulations for women’s health care centers forces current providers of first trimester abortion to meet stricter physical plant standards than any other health care facility in the state – stricter than hospitals, nursing home facilities, hospices, and outpatient facilities. Abortion is no different from many other outpatient procedures that do not trigger the burdensome regulations that are now applied to women’s health care centers. There is no legitimate reason to impose a different interpretation of the law, mandating extremely onerous new construction standards on health care facilities that have been safely providing quality first trimester abortion care to Virginia women for 40 years, especially when no other existing entity is required to meet those standards.

Requiring existing abortion care facilities to comply with the 2010 Guidelines for Design and Construction of Health Care Facilities is inconsistent with the regulation of every other type of health care facility in Virginia. In justifying imposing this requirement on existing abortion facilities, the Department of Health incorrectly asserts that “the regulatory provisions pertaining to facility design [and] construction are written based on Virginia § 32.1-127.001.” But this statute does not mandate that existing facilities meet the Guidelines standards, and clearly no other type of facility in the state has been forced to rebuild its existing building as a result of Virginia Code § 32.1-127.001.   Every single time the Board has adopted regulations implementing this code section, it has applied the regulations only to new construction and renovations of existing buildings. No other health care facility has been forced to rebuild its existing structure to comply with these Guidelines, even though Virginia Code § 32.1-127.001 applies to hospitals, nursing homes, hospice centers, and outpatient surgical facilities.  These building restrictions have not even been applied to any existing hospitals in the state, much less outpatient services and facilities.

Imposing the massive costs of compliance with this unnecessary regulation on any hospital or medical facility in the state (including women’s health centers!) regardless of whether it will actually provide any benefit for patient safety and well-being is absurd.  That the Attorney General has set this new precedence, risking all medical facilities with his recent (mis)interpretation of the law, underscores the extent to which the abortion facility regulations are about politics and not health, and are designed to force women’s health centers to close their doors.

I understand that there can not be selective application of the law.  I am against requiring ANY existing hospital to come into compliance with Guidelines for Design and Construction of Health Care Facilities which are specifically intended to apply only to new construction, not to existing facilities.  Applying these burdensome guidelines to existing facilities will only result in further limiting access to health care.  Additional wrongs do not make a right.  I urge the VDH and the Board of Health to deny this petition and to revisit any interpretation of code that makes that a questionable legal action!