Operation to remove dead `foetus ‘doomed to failure’

ONE of the country’s leading private maternity hospitals did not have the surgical equipment needed to remove a dead foetus from a patient’s womb, the High Court has heard.

piece of equipment cost a few hundred pounds and the hospital had since acquired one but up to five years ago it was considered primarily an instrument for use in abortions and it was not available to staff.

A medical expert told the court yesterday the absence of the instrument was one of the reasons the operation to remove the 17-week-old foetus was “doomed to failure”.