Woman Felt Violated After Abortion Clinic Nurse Made Her Strip Naked Before the Abortion

National   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Aug 24, 2016   |   6:19PM   |   Washington, DC

As the British abortion group Marie Stopes International faces government scrutiny for unsafe practices, a separate case this week revealed how several of its patients received sub-standard care.

A former Marie Stopes patient filed a complaint against one of its nurses in 2014, saying she felt “violated” and “unsupported” at her abortion appointment, the Croydon Advertiser reports.

The woman said the nurse at the Marie Stopes facility in East Croydon, England did not speak English very well and failed to explain the procedure for a scan and the side effects of the abortion pill mifepristone. She said the nurse also made her strip naked in front of her.

The patient filed a complaint against the nurse, Usha Adhikari, with a government disciplinary council; and this week, the council revealed its decision about the case, according to the report.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council concluded that Adhikari put the patient “at unwarranted risk of harm, breached a fundamental tenet of the profession and brought the nursing profession into disrepute.”

The news report states that the nurse’s case is separate from a recent government investigation of the Marie Stopes abortion chain, which revealed numerous safety concerns and led to the suspension certain abortion procedures in the UK.

Here is more about the case:

Mrs Adhikari admitted three charges of misconduct and another of lacking the necessary [language qualifications] during a Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) hearing held on August 9. The ruling of the panel was made public this week.

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The panel told Mrs Adhikari that the patient had raised concerns about her treatment in an email in October 2014.

“Specifically [she] indicated that you had not taken steps to maintain her dignity, had not explained what was happening prior to the internal scan and had also failed to explain the potential side effects of the medication prescribed to her,” the panel said.

“She indicated in her email that she had felt “uncomfortable, unsupported and violated”.

She also faced misconduct charges for failing to keep proper records on September 10, 2014.

That incident meant it took nearly four hours for doctors to prescribe an abortion drug, when it should have taken just 30 minutes.

In January last year, another complaint was made about Mrs Adhikari’s actions at the clinic after a patient said she had been told there was “nothing there” during an ultrasound scan.

Mrs Adhikari then gave the woman a course of antibiotics but failed to tell her why they were required, and had not recorded the reason in official records.

The panel decided not to suspend her nursing license, but it ruled that she must be supervised and must work to improve her English skills, according to the report.

Marie Stopes, an international abortion chain based in England, has a reputation for poor patient care. It also is one of the largest abortion chains in the UK, performing about 70,000 abortions on unborn babies each year.

On Friday, The Guardian reported the abortion chain suspended certain abortion procedures after the British Care Quality Commission discovered serious safety concerns. The suspension includes abortions on under-age girls and vulnerable groups of women, and abortions using general anesthetic or conscious sedation. In addition, its Norwich facility is not performing any surgical abortions, the commission said.

The commission said drastic action was necessary to “to make sure that patients are protected from potential harm.”

The commission said its health inspectors began reporting concerns after conducting inspections of the abortion facilities. Their concerns led to an unannounced inspection of the Marie Stopes headquarters and call center in England within the past month, according to the Guardian. Its inspectors found concerns related to “consent” and “training and competence in conscious sedation and general anesthesia.”

The CQC has not released details about its findings. A full report is expected in the fall.

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 allegedly died from a heart attack caused by “extensive internal blood loss” just hours after having an abortion.

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