Four months after the British government blocked an abortion chain from performing certain abortions, citing serious safety concerns, the government released new reports showing how the abortion chain put women’s lives at risk.
The Times reports Marie Stopes International was found to have falsified safety checks, “bulk signed” abortion consent forms and failed to properly train staff for emergency situations. Inspectors also found women exposed to hazardous materials and remains from aborted babies left in open trash cans, according to the Care Quality Commission reports.
One report also detailed how government inspectors witnessed staff performing an abortion on a woman with learning disabilities who did not understand what was happening.
Marie Stopes is the largest abortion chain in England, performing about 70,000 abortions every year. In the past few years, LifeNews has reported numerous instances where women allegedly suffered injuries or even died after having abortions at Marie Stopes facilities. In one of the more recent cases, a woman reportedly died from a heart attack caused by “extensive internal blood loss” just hours after having an abortion at a Marie Stopes facility.
Here’s more from The Times:
Full findings published yesterday reveal large gaps in safety procedures. In four clinics staff were found marking safe surgery checklists as complete before procedures had even started, including sections designed to make sure instruments were not left behind in patients’ bodies and that they were recovering properly.
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Incidents such as harm to patients and staff shortages more than tripled in a year to 2,634 in 2015-16 but the charity did not appear to investigate why.
In some clinics, only a quarter of staff had training in basic life support while nurses in charge of patients lacked training in anaesthetic problems, inspectors said.
The Telegraph reports government inspectors intervened in one specific situation after seeing a woman with learning disabilities in distress while undergoing an abortion. According to the report, the abortion facility tried to perform the abortion even though the woman did not understand what was happening.
Inspectors found “horrific scenes,” including parts of aborted babies left in open trash cans and patients exposed to potentially hazardous conditions that could cause infections, according to the Telegraph.
Here’s more from the Telegraph:
Staff were not trained in how to respond to a deteriorating patient, achieving poor results when resuscitation simulations were attempted. Patients were put at risk of avoidable errors, because basic surgery checklists were not followed, with long waits for patients having terminations.
In South London, obtaining consent was left to nurses and healthcare assistants, in breach of laws which state this should be done by doctors.
In Maidstone in Kent, inspectors found failings in infection control systems, with poor hand hygiene, and failures in pre-surgical preparation.
Life, a British pro-life group that helps thousands of women facing crisis pregnancies every year, sent a letter to the British Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt on Wednesday, asking the government to protect women by putting a halt to Marie Stopes’ abortion practices.
“It is because of our deep concern about the safety of women who may use these clinics …” Life Education Director Anne Scanlan wrote to Hunt, in the letter provided to LifeNews. “If similar breaches were observed in the Education sector, and the safety of children was at risk, schools would be closed.”
Scanlan noted that Marie Stopes, despite the horrific findings, receives millions of taxpayer pounds every year.
“When one considers the litany of failures, breaches of health and safety standards and non-adherence to the law, it cannot be in the interest of the public to continue funding for such an organisation,” Scanlan wrote.
In August, the government suspended Marie Stopes facilities from performing abortions on groups of women considered to be the most vulnerable, including those under age 18. However, the government allowed the group to resume its abortion practices in October after it agreed to fix the problems, according to the report.
This week, Marie Stopes spokespeople said they have been working to improve patient safety.
Marie Stopes International has a long record of reportedly injuring women in abortions. In a 2011 case, a British abortionist lost his medical license after he was accused of nearly killing a woman in a botched abortion at a Marie Stopes abortion facility in West London, LifeNews reported.
One of its Australia facilities currently faces a lawsuit after a woman said she almost died there after having an abortion. The woman claims that the Marie Stopes abortionist failed to recognize that she had an ectopic pregnancy before the abortion. A few days later, the woman had to have emergency surgery because her fallopian tube ruptured and threatened her life, according to court documents.
