Two clinics failed inspections
Report details issues at clinic on Carling, orders Sandy Hill clinic to stop abortions
Dr. Christiane Farazli’s endoscopy practice was inadequate in two dozen areas and is one of two private surgical clinics in the city that have failed inspections, according to records made public Friday.
Farazli’s Carling Avenue clinic “conducts no proper cleaning between cases,” and failed to monitor patients properly and use proper equipment to sterilize instruments, according to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario’s report on the failed inspection, dated July 22, 2011.
“Both during and at the end of the procedure, there was gross cross-contamination occurring from the dirty scope,” it states.
The findings caused a scare for 6,800 of Farazli’s former patients, who received a letter warning they might have been infected with HIV or hepatitis. The city’s public-health unit didn’t end up finding any link between cases of serious illness and the clinic.
The other Ottawa clinic to fail an inspection was the Dr. Wee-Lim Sim Medical Practice at 371 Friel St., near Laurier Avenue East and King Edward Avenue.
It was ordered not to perform therapeutic abortions, as the “minimal expected standard” for anesthesia was not used, according to a report dated July 18, 2011. It also found the clinic lacked various monitoring and resuscitation equipment and drugs, and that staff did not hold all of the proper qualifications.
A policy and procedure manual couldn’t be provided, and floors and walls were cluttered, the report indicated.
Sim, who specializes in obstetrics and gynecology, said Friday that the findings pertained to his facility, not his skills as a doctor. He no longer offers abortions at his clinic following the college’s investigation, he said.
“It’s only my place that the college failed because it’s not a surgical suite, but in my opinion, it’s a skill and experience and not how many tools you have, because I have been doing surgical abortions for 47 years in my office safely,” he said.
“When they came they found that I didn’t have all of these registered nurses, I didn’t have an operating table, I didn’t have all of the things that they wanted, so they decided that I couldn’t do these things, which is fine.”
The records were made public after the college’s council decided Thursday to increase transparency by posting information on its website that includes the results of current inspection findings along with detailed reasons for a failed inspection or any conditions placed on a clinic.
The college received the power in 2010 to conduct inspections of “out-of-hospital premises” where procedures such as cosmetic surgery and endoscopies take place and certain types of anesthesia are used.
The Ottawa clinics were among nine in the province that were listed as fails after more than 250 inspections conducted by the college. (Two additional clinics failed inspections but weren’t identified because they met conditions required for them to pass before the bylaw to make the results public was approved.)
Another 17 clinics were given a pass with conditions. Among them was the Seekers Centre for Integrative Medicine, at 942 Merivale Rd., north of Kirkwood Avenue.
There, the college’s premises inspection committee “was not satisfied with the log of controlled substances that the premises provided for consideration,” the Jan. 28, 2013, report states, and the committee also wanted an explanation for when controlled substances were kept in stock when the clinic has stated it doesn’t use sedation in procedures.
The clinic is working closely with the college to address the conditions and has disposed of the controlled substances in question, said Tuan Nguyen, its executive director.
Meanwhile, Sim said his clinic remains open and he conducts other procedures such as removing intrauterine devices, something the college says doesn’t fall under the jurisdiction of its inspection program.
Sim graduated from the University of Malaya in 1966, according to college records, and has no past findings of discipline from the college. He also works at a walk-in clinic in Montreal, he said, and didn’t depend on surgical abortions to make his living. Sim said he’s “exceptional because I can do things that other doctors cannot do.” One of them, he said, is that he can “easily” remove intrauterine devices from women who received them in China, where a one-child policy is in place.
The college wouldn’t comment on individual inspection reports, but Sim said that “I can tell you that if I convert my office into an operating suite, I would have no difficulty in getting approved, because I failed not because of me, but because of the place.”
He argued that it can be beneficial to get assistance from someone he has hand-picked and worked with for many years, rather than a person with full credentials.
“If I pick a girl who is not a registered nurse and train her for 47 years, in my opinion, she will be better than a registered nurse who is fresh from college and has no experience,” he said.
Of the failed inspection, Sim said, “I cannot blame the college, because they have to assess all doctors. They cannot say because I am skilled and experienced, therefore they make an exception. They cannot do that. They have to have the same onesize-fits-all.”
Patients have written letters thanking him for his care, he said.
“I still offer the three As — affable, available and able — to my patients.”
An email sent to Farazli on Friday did not receive an immediate reply. The college has been conducting an investigation into her clinic, and she faces a lawsuit from former patients.
The college’s website indicates that both clinics have withdrawn from the out-of-hospital premises program, which means they’re not allowed to perform the procedures it oversees.