I’ve just been denied medical management of a failed abortion

Sending love. This is terrible, I'm shocked.

Doesn’t this also make the case for clinics like BPAS & MSI to beef up their aftercare and put in place emergency provision?

That way women get the speedy care they need (and have paid for) and no conscientious objection issues.

Given the amount of income they generate they ought not just to abandon their clients to the NHS?

(I have the same issue with private hospitals btw. I had retained infected placenta after my first birth at the Portland, who shunted me off to A&E. I had to wait 3 days over a bank holiday before it was sorted. Breastfeeding a newborn while on IV antibiotics was fun).

As I said, I do feel for you and hope you get back to your baby soon.

@JessicaWakefieldSV

Totally agree.

Doctors don’t need to get into gynaecology, they choose to. If they choose to and then refuse to perform certain gynaecological procedures, they’re placing their morals before patient care. They should not be in that area of medicine. The end.

THIS.

That analogy works only in places where euthanasia is legal,

Like with terminations, only certain places perform euthanasia in those countries. A better analogy would be, a doctor taking a job at a clinic that performed euthanasia and then refused to do it when asked. Doctors don’t need to get into gynaecology, they choose to. If they choose to and then refuse to perform certain gynaecological procedures, they’re placing their morals before patient care. They should not be in that area of medicine. The end.

What should say more clearly - if you still had an intra-uterine pregnancy and no bleeding or pain - then yes, that would be managed on an outpatient or daycase basis by either the original or another TOP provider. Not all UK gynae units provide an elective TOP service - still appalling, but understood this is the situation.
However, that is not the case here. There is no defence for delaying treatment given that OP has been assessed as needing it (unclear whether the surgery is a TOP or ERPC).

IF you no longer have an identifiable pregnancy on scan (at least a yolk sac and gestation sac intact), then any refusal to deal with retained products as a result of a TOP, in an emergency situation, does NOT come under the defence of conscientious objection. They are on extremely shaky ground if this the case, OP.

Just want to say OP. I appreciate you are going through a very traumatic time and I hope your ordeal is over soon.

Surely they cant force you to leave, and they cant stop your baby being with you?

I would stay and take baby into the ward with you

OP, ask for a copy of your scan report to take home with you. What they have reported to you verbally about the scan (was this a departmental scan by Sonographer, or done out of hours by a junior, conscientiously objecting, Doctor?).

It doesn’t seem clear whether they have confirmed you still have a viable, intra-uterine pregnancy or not? This should be easily picked up, as you would have been at least 5 weeks by scan at the initial termination? It’s important that they are taking into account the scan findings prior to termination (which they can have emailed over from the provider). This talk of “possible flicker” of a heartbeat is emotive, distressing and completely irrelevant. This is a hospital that provides terminations!
It’s very standard procedure if you have an incomplete termination with significant bleeding to manage surgically asap and to give at least prophylactic antibiotics. Even more important as you are breastfeeding and they are pushing outpatient management.

I feel ashamed my peers are treating you like this. Fucking disgraceful. Stay strong OP.

Sleep warrior that would be all very well, if OP was being denied the op due to staff shortages or other emergencies. She was told she would have it and the only reason she hasn’t is because 2 doctors were unwilling to do it due to personal beliefs. That’s not ok!

This is terrible! WTF why does it matter if your bleeding from an abortion what matter is you're bleeding and at risk of infection, havi g already had sepsis!!!

I will hold my hands up and say I'm pro life but that is me, I would never ever judge anyone for making a choice to have an abortion for whatever reason. And definitely wouldnt refuse to treat a women because she had one.
Each women has their own circumstances and reasons for having an abortion. Which is private to them. my two closest friends have had abortions, I dont love them any less... because my view is different.

The way you are being treated is an absolute disgrace! Dont bloody work in obs/gyne if it's against their religion its like being back in the dark ages!

i would dial down the drama

Well, that has to be just about the most callous post I've ever seen on FWR. And I've seen a few.

OP. Please take heart most of us are not like this.

If we stop allowing health professionals to have their own ethics, and morals, and make them simply slaves that do what the patient wants, and is legal, I think we'll be in trouble.

I have little interest in the personal ethics and morals of healthcare professionals, I'm more interested in their professional medical ethics. Who do you think provides medical care to violent offenders, sex offenders and paedophiles? Perhaps we should just let these people die because we find their crimes unpalatable or maybe our health care professionals should leave their personal beliefs at the door and do their job. I had to many times when I worked in health care, it's called professionalism.

Yes religion is a protected characteristic but it's not a free pass. In the same way that I - disabled - can't apply for a job as an Everest Sherpa and cry discrimination when they laugh at me, a doctor should not be applying for a job they have no intention of fully performing.

This is terrible.

Religion is really full of shit, the root of so much evil in the world, in the name of religion.

I think people should keep religioun at home, do what you have to do in private but don't inflict your insanity on the rest of us.

The circumstances surrounding this sound understandingly upsetting and stressful for you at an already emotional time, but I am also struggling to see what basic medical care you have been denied.

There is no set up for you to be able to walk in to a hospital and instantly get an abortion as it is an elective procedure. The fact that you had one last week that may have been unsuccessful doesn't automatically change that. You will be allowed to have the procedure, but sometimes that involves a wait for someone who's prepared to do it or for someone to be free. Unless of course it's an emergency, which you were considered as for a while, then down-graded as thankfully your bleeding improved. The previous sepsis doesn't make you an emergency now unless you are showing particular symptoms or have a relevant condition that you haven't mentioned. Many departments are chronically understaffed. The doctors hate it as much as the patients and normally can't just swap things around.

The way staff have communicated with you may well be an issue that is complaint-worthy, but it really doesn't sound like your healthcare has been compromised.

The posters whipping things into a frenzy talking about doctors being unable to deny treatment to a paedophile etc are being plain silly. It's not a reasonable analogy at all - abortion objection is about not wanting to participate in intentionally ending any life, not about choosing to deny medical care from someone you don't think is worthy (women/murderers etc). There is no medical consensus about whether abortion IS ending a life, but that's why it's important to be able to opt out. It doesn't mean they hate women and shouldn't be a obstetrician/gynaecologist any more than a geriatrition who is against euthanasia doesn't obviously hate the elderly and shouldn't have to do another job. That analogy works only in places where euthanasia is legal, but it's the closest you can really get. Bottom line is some doctors are opposed to intentionally ending human life in any circumstances - that's it.

OP, I hope you manage to get back to your baby very soon for some much needed cuddles, rest and healing

But it looks like the foetus is alive, diddl. It's in the OP:

Internal scan reveals what they think is a foetal heart beat still in there.

If so, then Tinyteatime will need a second TOP as the one she's already had didn't work.

"I read somewhere that something like 10% of terminations fail."

What does that mean though-that not everything is removed or that a viable foetus is left?

We are not in Gilead. Or even the USA.

The irony of this statement, coming from the poster who said it, made me laugh out loud, albeit in horror.

Surely it would be helpful if, at the point of choosing specialties, the trainee doctors should be asked to confirm that they understand that by choosing gynaecology they will be faced with medical events that are currently entirely legal but which may conflict with their personal beliefs. Further that they will agree to prioritise the patient and the law above their own feelings, from whatever basis.

Not a hard one. If they can’t do that, at that stage, then there are plenty of other options.

I read somewhere that something like 10% of terminations fail. That’s an awful lot of women potentially having to deal with this sort of shit. Don’t do the job unless you can do the job.

The only reason OP hasn’t had the treatment she needs is due to misguided ethical objections, which is unacceptable. And I would be feeling a lot more dramatic than the OP is being, have some empathy!

How can hospitals recruit gynae staff who won't provide gynae services? Why are they not being REALLY suspicious of people who are going to actively get in the way of patient care?

Put simply, because religion is a protected characteristic and merely being a woman isn't (though there are some circumstances that can make them so)

Barracker got it right. OP was seen by a doctor, who thought her condition was sufficiently serious for her to be placed 1st on the list for today's surgery. A different medic then decided they had conscientious objections to carrying out the procedure, and also decided (since the bleeding had stopped) that the procedure was no longer urgent, which looks like an after-the-fact justification to me.

OP has been previously told by another medic that she is at elevated risk of sepsis due to having had it in the past. It's one of the known risks of retained products of conception.

And yet she is being denied a D&C for the sole reason that the medics on duty today are anti-abortion.

Now we have posters popping up to have a go at her and tell her to "dial back the drama", when she's lost a lot of blood, been separated from her baby (the existing one that is already alive, that she chose to have, that she loves and wants to look after, not some figment of a pro-forced-birther's imagination). Those posters should be fucking ashamed of themselves.

I agree with a PP who said if you choose to go into an area of medicine where performing abortions is part of the job, and you refuse to do those parts, then your motives for making that choice are pretty suspect. There were a thousand and one other specialisations you could have chosen... why choose the one which involves you denying a legal medical service to the one in three women who will need it at some point in their lives?