Doctors, Nurses, and Midwives have written to every TD in the Dáil, and to every Senator, to urge them to take “immediate action” to ensure that an ultrasound is provided before abortion pills are prescribed to women after a woman almost died in a case presented by Limerick Maternity Hospital.
One medical expert told Gript that the case could not be “swept under the carpet”, and that if the Minister did not act “women’s lives could be endangered”.
Last week, Consultant Obstetrician Trevor Hayes, commenting on the case said that it was “paramount” that ultrasounds be provided when women were being prescribed abortion pills, which usually happens in a GP or women’s clinic.
Now, in a letter sent to every TD and Senator last week, Doctors for Life has said that they wished to bring “this alarming case” to the attention of public representatives, and urged them to “take action”.
The case, written up by medical experts working in Obstetrics and Gynaecology in the March edition of the Journal of the Irish Medical Organisation, said that it provided insights into “a serious and life-threatening event” described as “maternal collapse due to a ruptured EP [ectopic pregnancy] after a termination of pregnancy”.
She was gravely ill, and in a life-threatening situation, requiring “immediate resuscitation” before having her ruptured fallopian tube removed.
The woman had been prescribed abortion pills, but – as is routine practice – the GP had not performed an ultrasound, and the fact that her unborn baby was lodged in her fallopian tube, and not her womb, was therefore missed.
Doctors for Life asked TDs to “please urge the Health Minister Stephen Donnelly to read the case, to take heed of the warnings from medical experts, and to change the policy immediately to ensure that GPs and clinics perform ultrasounds before prescribing abortion pills. In 2018, the amendment to request routine ultrasounds prior to prescribing abortion pills was rejected”.
“We call for an immediate action to ensure that women are routinely offered an ultrasound prior to a medical abortion to rule out ectopic pregnancy,” they said.
Nurses and Midwives for Life warned that “an ectopic pregnancy and it is extremely dangerous, because, as the baby grows, the tube can rupture leading to massive bleeding, organ failure, shock, and death”.
They said there was an “urgent need for policy change or women might die” – adding: “If we say we really care about women irrespective of our position on abortion, then this practice needs to change immediately”.
Identifying the symptoms of an ectopic pregnancy – abdominal pain, vaginal bleeding – is key to diagnosis and life-saving intervention. But if a woman who has an ectopic pregnancy has taken abortion pills prescribed by her GP, and no ultrasound has been performed, then the symptoms of the rupturing tube can be mistaken at first for the symptoms of the abortion pill.
Speaking to Gript, Mary Fitzgibbon of Nurses and Midwives for Life said that it would be “completely unacceptable if this alarming case, which has pointed to a very serious, life-threatening flaw in the abortion process, is ignored or swept under the carpet”.
“If the Minister does not act, then women’s lives will be endangered and women may die. That was made very clear in the case report published in the Irish Medical Journal, when these medical experts said that women may die if the practice of not providing routine scans continued,” she said.
“It would be a major scandal if this case was ignored,” she added. “The media also needs to put its biases aside and focus on protecting women’s lives.”
Dr Trevor Hayes said last week that the decision to refuse an amendment proposed by Carol Nolan TD in 2018 to ensure an ultrasound before taking prescribed pills was a “political and not medical decision” in his view.
Medics call on the government to amend abortion legislation to provide ultrasounds to women seeking termination in order to rule out ectopic pregnancy after a woman in Limerick almost died. pic.twitter.com/okE3YYRQUh
— gript (@griptmedia) March 29, 2024
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Clown world, medical doctors writing to people who are clueless about medical issues to get permission to perform medical procedures. Next judges will have to get approval off tayto for sentences.
Carol Nolan TD asked then Health Minister Simon Harris to ensure an ultrasound was carried out before such a procedure in each case after abortion was legalised in 2018. Harris’s response was that “It would be a terrible use of what people rightly point out is a scarce resource in the health service”. It seems the only time the Govt are interested in “saving women’s lives” is when they want to legalise abortion.
This will never happen. Nothing which could show the humanity of the unborn child will be allowed to be shown to women who wish to procure an abortion.
Abortion was never about women’s health or lives. It was an ideological fight. Feminist ideology has won and accordingly women will die as a result. Feminists are quite happy for that price to be paid.
Ultrasound should be INSISTED upon – not simply provided! It should not be a matter of choice!
Yet no mention of this serious incident in Prime Times investigation on abortion services aired last night.