Hundreds of women may have undergone ‘mistaken’ abortions, says report

ionainstitute.ie Abortions may have been mistakenly performed on hundreds of healthy babies after an NHS hospital was found to be following “outdated guidelines”. The problem came to light after mum-to-be Emily Wheatley went to the University Hospital of Wales (UHW), in Cardiff, for an ultrasound scan and told her baby was dead and she would need a 'uterine evacuation'. But Ms Wheatley, 31, went to another hospital where midwives found a heartbeat and told her the baby was still alive, the Daily Telegraph reports. UHW has been ordered to pay Ms Wheatley £1,500 compensation and make immediate changes to their practices following an investigation by the Public Services Ombudsman. The Ombudsman, reporting on Friday, said the flaws in the hospital’s practices may go back to as far as 2006, and would “clearly” have affected more women than just Ms Wheatley. The University Hospital of Wales delivers around 6,000 babies every year, with between 600 and 1,200 women having a miscarriage. Ms Wheatley, now mum to healthy eight-month-old baby Ella, went to the 1,000-bed hospital nine weeks into her pregnancy. She was told she needed an operation to remove the dead child, following a Doppler Ultrasound and transabdominal scan. But the next day Ms Wheatley went to Nevill Hall Hospital in Abergavenny, where nurses gave her a transviginal scan and found the baby was still alive. "I feel angry at the decision to not follow a simple process which could have prevented this misdiagnosis,” she said. "It's just unbelievable that there are potentially other women out there who have been diagnosed with having a silent miscarriage.” Peter Tyndall, the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales, said: "Were it not for the fortunate circumstance of this woman seeking her post-miscarriage care at an alternative hospital it seems likely that these failings would have resulted in the medical termination of a healthy, viable pregnancy. "The clinical practices of midwives at the University Hospital of Wales in respect of the diagnosis of early miscarriages have been potentially flawed. "I expect women who have been diagnosed with early miscarriages and subsequently underwent uterine evacuation will find this extremely disturbing." to read more click here: ionainstitute.ie