The boss of a NSW area health service has apologised to a woman left
on her own to miscarry her 14-week-old baby and dispose of the foetus in a public hospital toilet.
Jodie Whiteside from the NSW Hunter region said she attended Maitland Hospital on December 20 believing she
was miscarrying.
An emergency department triage nurse told the mother of two, who was in severe pain, there was nothing that
could be done, before directing her to a public toilet cubicle where she miscarried and had to put her foetus down the toilet.
"Let me say I'm very distressed to hear about the circumstances of Jodie's care," the chief executive of the
Hunter New England Area Health Service, Nigel Lyons, told Fairfax Radio Network.
"It's clear that the distress that was caused by Jodie's experience at the hospital is something that we deeply
regret and apologise for.
"We'll fully investigate this and find out what's occurred and why and what we can do better. But the aspects
that come through to me is that it is about the care that we've provided in terms of sensitivity."
After cleaning the toilet, Ms Whiteside said she was found a bed, given an ultrasound and seen by a doctor who
told her that thousands of women have experienced miscarriage.
"We really need to make sure that when people attend our emergency department in a very distressing situation for them,
then we need to be more caring," Dr Lyons said.
The Saturday Ms Whiteside attended the emergency department was particularly busy, Dr Lyons said, but the hospital was
adequately staffed.
He said the incident would be investigated to clarify what occurred on the day, and Ms Whiteside and her family would be
kept informed.
The miscarriage echoes the experience of Jana Horska in September 2007, when she miscarried in a public toilet
at Sydney's royal North Shore Hospital after waiting in pain for an hour and being told by hospital staff there was nothing
they could do.
