24 miscarriage diagnoses under review

UP to 24 women may have been wrongly told they miscarried by hospital doctors over the past five years, a soon-to-be-completed HSE report into the scandal will claim.

A detailed briefing document provided to Health Minister James Reilly has confirmed two dozen cases are being examined in which doctors may have incorrectly told expectant mothers they lost their foetus.

The review was instigated last June after revelations some women were wrongly told they miscarried, a mistake caused by faulty foetal scanning, equipment and a lack of second opinions.

The scandal — which caused a national outcry and widespread concern from women whose pregnancy did not reach full term — only emerged after Melissa Redmond, from Donabate in north Dublin, went public with her story.

The mother-of-three, who had suffered miscarriages before, was told by staff at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda on July 22, 2009 — just eight weeks into her pregnancy — she had miscarried.

However, despite being told to have a dilation and curettage & procedure and to take an abortion-inducing drug to remove the foetal remains, she insisted on re-visiting her GP for a second scan which showed a foetal heartbeat.

Her healthy baby, Michael, was born on March 6 the following year.

While a report into this incident found the original diagnosis was based on the opinion of only one doctor and problems with equipment, facilities, staffing and scanning practice guidelines, the Institute of Obstetrics said it was likely to be an extremely rare incident.

The HSE’s clinical lead for obstetrics, Dr Michael Turner, also said he had never heard of such a situation before this controversy.

However, a review chaired by Prof William Ledger, vice president of Britain’s Royal College of Obstetrics — which is due to be published in early summer, despite an original December deadline — said at least 24 other women may have suffered the same situation since 2005 alone.

A total of 32 possible cases were forwarded by hospitals to the HSE’s national review of miscarriage diagnoses, which authorities controversially limited to the past five years. Of these, 24 have been deemed to meet the inquiry’s inclusion criteria.

This includes “any cases where… drug or surgical treatment was recommended when the diagnosis of miscarriage had been made in error, and where subsequent information demonstrated that the pregnancy was viable”.

The ministerial briefing document containing the figure does not reveal the circumstances of the new miscarriage misdiagnosis cases or which hospitals are involved.