KENNEWICK — A Tri-Cities doctor has been charged with unprofessional conduct after complaints were made, including that she issued medical and religious exemptions to children whose parents did not want them immunized.
The Washington state Department of Health also received a complaint that Dr. Virginia Frazer of Blue Heron Naturopathic Care in Kennewick violated medical record rules, which could be unauthorized disclosure of medical records or unreadable medical records.
The complaints were made in 2020, but the Washington state agency just announced charges because it said she did not respond to the complaints and was not at her business when an investigator attempted to talk to her there, according to the Department of Health.
The department released no further information about the complaints.
Frazer also failed to take steps required after her midwifery license, but not her naturopathic physician’s license, was suspended in 2017, according to the Department of Health’s new charges against her.
“The case involving respondent’s midwife credential involved serious recordkeeping and practice concerns, including missing test results, lack of records of infant and mother exams, illegible records, lack of informed consent, lack of standard laboratory tests including ultrasounds, evidence of strep infection in an infant with no documentation of treatment and no assessment of maternal temperature,” according to the Department of Health.
The suspension of her midwifery license was originally for three years, but the suspension has not been lifted, according to information from the state.
A year after her midwifery license was suspended she told the Department of Health she was unaware of that.
She had performed a few prenatal visits and one delivery after the suspension and asked if her signature on the birth certificate of that infant was valid, according to the Department of Health.
Shortly after that Frazer told the Tri-City Herald that her patients had not been in danger and that the suspension had to do with “clerical stuff.”
She denied all allegations, according to state documents.
Health officials also said that no patient had been harmed.
She and the department agreed to an “informal disposition.” She was required to take an ethics course and a board exam.
She completed the exam last year about nine months after the requirement was due, according to the state.
She has not taken or passed the ethics course, a requirement due in spring 2021, according to the latest information from the state.
The Department of Health said Frazer said in spring 2021 that she could not afford the course. But she did not agree to an extension and declined to take the course, it said.
Frazer did not immediately respond to a Tri-City Herald request for comment on the allegations.
