NICE report says women who have miscarriages are treated insensitively by hospital staff
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A report by the NHS watchdog NICE has said that women who suffer miscarriages are often treated in an ‘insensitive’ manner by hospital staff.
Women who undergo the trauma of losing a baby are routinely treated by doctors, nurses and receptionists who fail to respond to the enormous emotional distress they are experiencing. One in five pregnancies end in miscarriage in the early stages, with 168,000 women affected each year in England alone.
Julie Orford, the chairman of the Birth Trauma Association, who advised NICE, spoke about her experience of miscarriage at an NHS hospital. She described doctors giving her ‘a cup of tea and a leaflet’ after telling her that she had lost her baby, before being placed in a packed waiting room, from where she could hear the sound of women giving birth from the maternity ward.
Health minister Dr Dan Poulter said: ‘Pregnant women deserve the best care possible. Many hospitals offer it, but provision can sometimes show unacceptable variations throughout our NHS.’
NICE has recommended that NHS staff undergo retraining, in order to show the proper ‘dignity’ and ‘respect’ that women in this position deserve.
