State public health officials ordered a Las Vegas medical clinic to shut down today because it was performing surgeries without a license.
The Clinica de Mujeres, 3700 E. Charleston Blvd., near Pecos Road, received a cease operations letter after authorities investigated a complaint about abortions being performed in an unsafe environment.
Doors to the small clinic in a deteriorating shopping center were locked late Tuesday afternoon, but there was no sign outside indicating the facility was closed.
Only a withered paper sign touting the facility’s services in Spanish — “Confidential, Professional, Economical” — was on the door.
Ben Kieckhefer, a spokesman for the Nevada State Health Division’s Bureau of Health Care Quality and Compliance, said the complaint about the clinic was not made by a patient, but by someone with knowledge about its operation.
“No one who complained had a bad outcome,” he said. “But there was a gross breakdown in infection control practices.”
Kieckhefer said that breakdown included breaches in providing sterile packaging and not having a manual or policy for a machine used to sterilize equipment.
Kieckhefer said the owner of the facility is Dr. Vickie Mazzorana, whose name cannot be found among the licensed physicians listed on the Nevada State Board of Medical Examiners’ Web site.
But Kieckhefer said state investigators believe she is licensed.
The Review-Journal profiled a physician with the same name on June 28 as part of a series on women in boxing.
The story said Mazzorana joined the Nevada Athletic Commission’s medical staff last year.
Kieckhefer said it’s his understanding the clinic’s owner and the physician profiled are the same person.
Attempts to reach Mazzorana for comment late Tuesday were unsuccessful.
Kieckhefer said investigators also believe the clinic was dispensing medication without a license. The state Pharmacy Board is investigating.
According to a news release from the health division, the facility “appears to be licensed as a clinic” by the city of Las Vegas.
But any facility performing surgeries for ambulatory patients is required to be licensed as an ambulatory surgery center by the state, “which Clinica de Mujeres is not,” the release said.Findings from the inspection will also be forwarded to the Board of Medical Examiners as well as the state attorney general’s office.
In the last two weeks, the state health division has issued cease operations letters to three other facilities in Las Vegas for performing unlicensed surgeries: Botanica Maya and Botanica San Francisco in northeast Las Vegas and the Skin Body Institute.
Kieckhefer said all four of the facilities have had infection control problems that put patients at great risk.
Kieckhefer said conventional wisdom among state health investigators is that there may be more unlicensed surgical centers in Las Vegas.
“This may be more widespread that we ever suspected,” he said.
Kieckhefer said people have to be alert that such facilities exist.
“They have to know that there is unsafe medical care out there,” he said. “It is safe to assume that major medical centers are licensed but people have to check beyond that.”
Las Vegas Review-Journal Reporter Lawrence Mower contributed to this story. Contact reporter Paul Harasim at pharasim@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2908.
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