That ban forced the clinic last year to end a longstanding patient transfer agreement with the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. The state requires outpatient surgical facilities, including abortion clinics, to maintain patient transfer agreements but, in a controversial state law passed last year, forbids abortion facilities from entering into them with public hospitals.
Last month the Ohio health director threatened the to shutdown the clinic if it failed to obtain a patient transfer agreement with a hospital. The variance request to the rule Planned Parenthood made last year to the state has gone unanswered.
Ohio Department of Health officials agreed Wednesday — two days after the clinic’s owners filed the federal lawsuit — not to take any action on the clinic’s license or ability to operate in the state, according to a press release from Planned Parenthood.
“We are satisfied with the (health department’s) decision to take no action until after the court rules,” Jerry Lawson, the CEO of Planned Parenthood said in a news release. “The safety of patients is our number one priority —putting safe and legal abortion out of reach for women in Cincinnati does just the opposite.”
Representatives from the Ohio Department of Health could not immediately be reached Friday evening.
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