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Nurse who Gave Abortion Drug to Wrong Patient Will not Lose License

By Hilary White

BIRMINGHAM, UK , July 21, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A UK nurse who administered an abortion drug to the wrong woman at an abortion facility in Birmingham will not lose her license to practise, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has decided. The incident occurred when a woman, identified as "Patient A", came into the facility on October 13, 2006 for an initial consultation. The nurse on duty, Ann Downer, gave the woman a dose of the abortion drug Mifepristol after failing to check her identity.

According to the Daily Telegraph on Friday, the woman was called back to the facility by staff and was reported to be "in pain and obviously very upset." The drug did not cause an abortion, but the patient was taken to hospital where her child was aborted surgically a week later.

The Council was told that it is the usual practice at the facility to call out only patients' first names in the waiting room to protect their confidentiality. It is only when the patient is in a private room that personal details, including full names, are taken.

The abortion drug is usually administered only to women who are 9 weeks pregnant or less, after she has been administered a dose of Mifepristone, which, as the Telegraph put it, "stops the growth of the foetus." Misoprostol, originally used to combat ulcers, causes strong uterine contractions and is meant to expel an already dead child. Investigators were told that an ultrasound was later conducted and Patient A was found to be over the nine week limit for using the drug. 

Nurse Downer "failed to carry out proper identity checks, and as such did not realize the treatment was being given to the wrong patient," said Nailah Mears of the NMC.

A caution will be placed on Downer's record for three years, but she will be allowed to continue nursing. An investigative panel said that this was an "isolated incident" and that nurse Downer had expressed regret and admitted her error as soon as she realised it.

The Calthorpe Clinic in Edgbaston, Birmingham, founded two years after the liberalisation of the abortion laws in 1969, was the first facility in the United Kingdom opened exclusively for abortions. Approximately 85 percent of the caseload is on contract to the NHS and the facility also carries out sterilisations.

In a Public Health Advisory issued in 2006, the US Food and Drug Administration warned of two women who died after taking the chemical abortion drug mifepristone. This brought the total death toll to six, not including the countless children intentionally killed by so-called "chemical abortion." The FDA also warned of over 600 incidents of adverse effects recorded following use of the drug. The report said that 42 women experienced life-threatening haemorrhages, 68 had severe haemorrhage requiring blood transfusion. There were 66 cases of infection including seven cases of potentially fatal septic shock.

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