Athens plays role in latest presidential campaign flap
April 7, 2008
Athens once again became a minor player in the U.S. presidential race over the weekend when news media and political blogs across the country covered an apparent gaff by the Hillary Clinton campaign that involves O’Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens.
The coverage focused on a story that Clinton had been including in her stump speeches this winter about an uninsured pregnant woman from Meigs County who supposedly was denied care at a hospital in a “neighboring county” based on a lack of money. The woman subsequently had a stillbirth upon returning to the hospital, and then died after being transferred to a hospital in Columbus.
A Washington Post story last Thursday identified the hospital as O’Bleness, as well as the woman, Trina Bachtel, 35. She was a patient of River Rose Obstetrics and Gynecology at O’Bleness.
Over the weekend, O’Bleness Memorial Hospital issued a news release denying that Bachtel was denied care, and in press reports, the Clinton campaign deferred to the hospital on the issue, and said it would stop including the story in Clinton’s stump speech.
In the hospital press release, Rick Castrop, chief executive officer of the O’Bleness Health System, said, “We reviewed the medical and patient account records of this patient. There is no indication that she was ever denied medical care at any time, for any reason. We clearly reject any perception that we ever denied any care to this young woman.”
Castrop said the hospital’s policy is to provide medically necessary care “regardless of our patients’ ability to pay for services. We implore the Clinton campaign to immediately desist from repeating this story.”
In remarks in a New York Times story on Saturday, hospital spokesperson Linda Weiss said the O’Bleness Health System treated Bachtel both at the hospital and the affiliated River Rose Obstetrics.
In The Times’ story, Clinton spokesperson Mo Elleithee acknowledged that campaign staffers apparently didn’t adequately vet the O’Bleness/Bachtel story, and noted that political campaigns frequently retell stories related to them on the campaign trail. “In this case, we did try but were not fully able to vet it,” she told The Times. “If the hospital claims it did not happen that way, we respect that.”
According to FOXNews.com, Clinton had been weaving the tale into her stump speeches since late February, though she didn’t identify either Bachtel or O’Bleness. The story was intended to illustrate flaws in the nation’s health-care system.
The Times reported that the Clinton campaign said they originally got the story from an Ohio sheriff’s deputy, who was quoted in the story as saying he got the anecdote secondhand from Bachtel’s relatives. They couldn’t be reached for comment in the article.
Some political blogs have been citing the incident, almost gleefully, as “another example” of distortions from the Clinton campaign, along the lines of her now infamous (and discredited) tales of taking gunfire after landing in Bosnia during her husband’s administration.
For example, the Jedreport.com commented on the incident over the weekend, writing, “You really have to watch Hillary Clinton tell the tale to get a sense of why the Times report will reinforce the hardening perception that she has a reckless disregard for the truth.”
The blog links to a CNN discussion of the story, including a clip of Clinton telling the Bachtel/O’Bleness story Friday night in Grand Forks, N.D.
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