REGULATING BODIES SLOW TO ACT IN DOCTOR'S CASE

Abortion remains a frontburner issue in this nation and likely will be so for some time. Beyond the moral and political dilemma this poses for many Americans, there is a medical consideration for those faced with these critical decisions. The current investigation of a Missouri doctor who has performed abortions in Cape Girardeau gives no cause for confidence in the argument that abortion is but a minor surgical procedure.

The case of Dr. Scott Barrett Jr. should be a disturbing one for pesons on both sides the abortion debate. The state of Missouri has looked into complaints about Barrett for 16 months; the complaints have been filed by physicians, former patients and the Missouri Department of Health. He is also faced with a $25 million wrongful death verdict awarded this year to parents of a 23-year-old woman who died during a 1988 abortion Barrett was performing. Through all this, he continues to perform abortions three days a week at his Springfield, Mo., clinic, though he does so without medical privileges at local hospitals, an apparent violation of state law.

Other complaints made against Barrett ranged from perforating a woman's uterus during an abortion, failure to transport the woman to an emergency facility and, in a separate incident, failure to remove the entire fetus during a procedure.

Barrett had been hired by Dr. Bolivar Escobedo to perform abortions at Escobedo's Women's Health Center in Cape Girardeau. Barrett was on leave from the local clinic when the Missouri Board of Healing Arts filed a complaint against him in early 1990. Escobedo also lacked surgical privileges at Cape Girardeau hospitals and had been named in an eight-count complaint before the Board of Healing Arts.

Even if abortion is a matter of national debate, the laws as they stand now even with any fluctuations caused by court decisions should be clear to all involved. If Barrett has failed to live up to standards of competency as a physician, if he has refused to provide the state with information necessary to determine his fitness to operate a clinic that performs legal procedures, then his right to practice medicine should be rescinded.

Complaints against Barrett have lingered for at least 16 months, yet he continues his practice unhindered. Why are the regulatory bodies so slow to act, either in clearing the doctor or condemning him?