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

[Tinyteatime]

I had a medical termination last Saturday, 7 weeks pregnant after my coil failed. Thought it had passed relatively easily so came away on a short holiday with my family luckily only 1.5 hours away from home. Started heavy bleeding and bad cramps yesterday, came to a&e as as advised by the BPAS clinic as I was flooding a pad and blood leaking through my trousers. Passed some very large clots. Internal scan reveals what they think is a foetal heart beat still in there. I’ve been in hospital one night and they said they would do the surgery on me this morning. I’ve just been told that all the doctors available won’t perform the procedure due to religion. This in the U.K. in 2019, in a hospital that offers abortion services. They’ve said I can stay another night and have it tomorrow, I have a breastfed baby that I’ve already been away from for one night, I’m in pain, bleeding and I’ve already had sepsis last year from a womb infection whilst giving birth so I’ve raised infection risk as a concern. I feel so angry about this. Would they deny women treatment for miscarriage? Or is it because there may still be a foetal heartbeat present? Is it simply because I’ve chosen to end the pregnancy myself? How in an nhs hospital can women be denied healthcare like this?

I'm so glad today went okay, OP.

Glad you managed to get the care you need and are entitled to. Do complain to the GMC about the relevant doctors too.

tiny

So glad you got what you needed and are at home now

Thanks for the update tiny, so pleased for you that you’ve finally had the care you should have had yesterday.

I hope you manage to get the breastfeeding back on track very soon...don’t forget loads and loads of water and I hope you get a relaxing weekend

For you Tiny

So pleased to read your update, Tiny.

I’m very relieved to hear you’ve had treatment now. Hoping you have a swift recovery. If you can complain I think it would worthwhile

"It seems that the gyne ward refuse to deal with anyone with slight complications from terminations"

It does sound like that from what you have said-that the radiographer gave them a get out.

It was mightily convenient, wasn't it?

And as you say, for it to have been anything more than retained products-what would that say about the first procedure you had?

Be interesting to know how many other women had the same scan results leading to others being able to object.

I've been following this thread and have been disgusted and shocked on your behalf. I'm so sorry you've been through this, please take care of yourself and hope you are able to re-establish supply.

Once things have settled, I'd seriously consider putting in a formal complaint about what happened. It really needs investigating.

The reason there are now clinics that specialise in TOPs is because so many health care professionals want to do them.
TOP patients would be in beds next to women who were miscarrying wanted pregnancies which was distressing for both.Very few hospitals now deal with TOPs unless it is life threatening,which In this case it was not.
Theatre nurses are not obliged to help with TOPs along with the surgical team,you only have to witness late abortions to understand why.
No one is permitted to withhold general care for a patient pre or post surgery.
This is obviously an emotive thread but piling on abusing all Drs and nurses without the facts is not helpful.
I'm glad that things have now been settled to the OPs satisfaction.If you really aren't happy your should formally complain but like many people you could just complain on social media and not complain.Only one course of action will actually make a difference.

This is obviously an emotive thread but piling on abusing all Drs and nurses without the facts is not helpful.

The OP has said the facts. They refused to do their job on religious grounds leaving her in pain and at risk of infection.

OP, I'm sorry you've had such a torrid time.

HRTWT but I've read enough to see a shocking lack of understanding about how the NHS works and the purpose of doctors. The NHS exists to provide and promote health care. At no point did the OP require emergency care and was denied this (as in she was dying and the doctors stood around and watched because they disagree with her choice to have a termination).

There also seems to be a belief that doctors objecting to participate in terminations do so on religious grounds. I've been a doctor nearly 20 years and this isn't my experience. I did my stint in O&G. I chose not to participate in terminations, as did almost every other doctor in the department (from memory I think there were about 3 out of 15 who would), and very few of them were religious. If you only have 3 doctors willing to participate in terminations do you expect those 3 to work a 1 in 3 rota (i.e. work 24 hours in every 72 hours) to ensure this non emergency service is covered? Most doctors go into medicine to save lives, not to end them; actively participating in terminations sits very uncomfortably with many doctors, religious or not. There is a huge difference between supporting womens' choices and actively participating in ending a life. And I say that as someone who did briefly consider a termination.

why are people being allowed to enter this field if we know they won't do their job properly. Id challenge those with thoughts along these lines (and there are many in this thread) to find me a doctor who would see a woman come to HARM (not inconvenience, not the service they want when they want it, but actual harm) due to anything related to a termination due to a doctors objection to participating in terminations.

This situation is also an example of the pitiful state the NHS is in, not helped by the fact that the OP lives rurally and therefore has even more limited choice than had she lived in a big city. Almost all drs rotas across the country are being held together by skeleton staff and if you are in some distant outpost attracting staff is even harder. If they add caveats like "you must agree to do terminations" they won't have any staff to do the emergencies, never mind the non emergencies.

Hotterthanahotthing your comment is insanely insensitive, rude and really just a pile of bullshit. In my experience, doctors and nurses are often arseholes to women and I am tired of people telling women not to complain when and where they like.

@drinthehouse you should have HRTWT. OP did need emergency care, that's what started this whole thing off.

I suggest you make yourself aware of the full facts before jumping into an unhelpful and inaccurate rant. The staff were not being asked to perform an abortion ffs.

They refused to do their job on religious grounds leaving her in pain and at risk of infection.

did someone actually say to the OP, "todays drs are christian/muslim/hindu and they don't do terminations", or she just presuming this is the reason? As said previously I don't know many doctors who will do terminations, and they aren't religious.

Littleandoften, I read enough to see what was happening without reading every post about how shit drs and nurses are. Perhaps you can look up the medical definition of an emergency. The OP got the care she needed after several hours. If she had been haemorrhaging all over the floor in A&E she would have been taken straight to theatre. Really, it wasn't an emergency.

‘I've been a doctor nearly 20 years and this isn't my experience. I did my stint in O&G. I chose not to participate in terminations, as did almost every other doctor in the department (from memory I think there were about 3 out of 15 who would)’

This is a very real problem. Opting out of something that is an essential part of obgyn services.

@drinthehouse no, you were selective. you read enough to confirm your bias. If your post was accurate you'd have an argument. It wasn't, you don't. Next time rtft.

@drinthehouse Yes they did. One of the doctors who refused to treat her came and spoke to her.

Can I suggest that even if you don't read the whole thread that you at least read all of the OPs posts.

hotterthan it seems there are still some posters who haven’t grasped the situation. I would never ever want to criticise doctors or nurses but the fact is that they should not be above criticism is the care is lacking. Actually lots of hospitals in my region offer terminations, including the one I was admitted to. I fully understand that these should be generally done on specialist wards. My scenario that I was admitted on to a general ward as an emergency from complications of a medical termination. THEY admitted me, THEY said that my symptoms indicate retained products. A junior doctor at 1st Said the normal course of action would be examination with a speculum to see if there was something stuck that could just be removed. She also said that if not, I would likely have an operation because of the risk of infection. When she discussed with her senior ( who happened to be a religious objector of abortion) he said he would do an internal scan. It’s now obvious he was not treating me as having the problem that all my symptoms indicated, but looking for any ‘flicker’ that could be interpreted as a heartbeat so he could essentially block my treatment, regardless of whether that was the best outcome for me. Whether he really saw a heartbeat on that 1st scan is debatable (as confirmed for me by the doctor who eventually did my procedure and has also seen the scan pictures). He confirmed that regardless of what the doctor saw it was in no way a viable pregnancy at that point, and I should have been treated as someone with retained products and an infection and elevated sepsis risk (because I’ve had it recently). THEY then kept me in overnight as I was still bleeding heavily, nil by mouth and told me I was 1st in the morning list for surgery. All this was confirmed by 2 more doctors who did the evening rounds. Come the morning, the on duty doctors were all religious objectors to abortion, and said they would not perform the op. THEY then tried to add me to the emergency list (basically they wanted someone else to deal with it) which I think is despicable in itself as I was NOT an emergency at this point, but I would argue that it was certainly better medically for me to operated on sooner rather than later, given infection risk. THEY were willing to ask the emergency team to do a non emergency op, had the team been free they could have taken it on and put someone else’s life at risk too. The emergency team then had a call for a big abdominal surgery, so rightly said they would not be doing my op. I was kept nil by mouth for 9 hours, could not feed my baby or pump but this point whilst all this was going on. I would understand that if my scan had showed an 8 weeks possibly viable pregnancy (which is what it would have been) then it would have been an elective termination and they have the right to refuse, and it would have been satisfactory then and there to refer me back to the termination ward. But this is not the case by any stretch of the imagination. My error was not insisting on a repeat scan or 2nd opinion at the time. It is not true that nurse can refuse to care for a termination patient on a general ward, but of course they can opt out of helping to perform an abortion. The fact is these doctors are not treating the case they have in front of them, but they are obstructing care because they are morally judging the actions I have taken as not being worthy of care. Do you know about the case of Savita Halappanavar? She died of sepsis because doctors refused to operate her unviable (naturally miscarried) pregnancy because they detected a heartbeat. This is medical negligence and that hospital is a ticking time bomb.

drinthehouse

I sincerely hope I never get you or anyone like you as my doctor. So far, the doctors I’ve dealt with on the NHS have been condescending uncaring arseholes who don’t give a fuck about women’s health. If you don’t want to perform terminations, get the fuck out of medicine you judgemental horrid doctor. Horrible.

So glad you have been taken care of properly now

Tinyteatime

You really don’t need to explain the situation again, you have already and I’m sure it’s upsetting to have to keep doing it. Those too lazy and judgemental to read the entire thread can bore off.

Hope you feel well today x