By Evie Andreou
THE gynaecologist who failed to detect a twin baby that died at birth during delivery in Paphos last week, has apologised to the young mother who had already given birth to a healthy boy some fifteen minutes earlier.
In her testimony to the police that will lead to an inquiry, the 22-year-old mother was quoted as saying that no-one at the public hospital noticed that she was carrying twins, both boys, despite the fact that she had been monitored five times on an ultrasound machine, allegedly the more state-of-the art version of the two in use at the hospital.
The Cyprus News Agency reported that the gynaecologist, who was on a temporary contract at the hospital and has since been dismissed, visited the unfortunate mother and apologised, saying that she understood the young woman’s predicament as she too suffered a similar traumatic experience when her daughter also had a loss at birth.
The young woman gave birth on Saturday to a baby boy but around fifteen minutes later she delivered another baby boy that was stillborn as neither the attending gynaecologist nor anyone in the delivery room realised the woman carried twins. A post mortem showed that the second boy died during birth.
The police investigation is expected to be completed next week, while the health ministry launched a separate administrative probe on Wednesday, which is expected to be completed by the end of the month.
The young mother, who has another child, was submitted to ultrasound checks five times during her pregnancy, most of which she said was on the new machine at the hospital.
Earlier in the week, former state pathologist Marios Matsakis argued that one of the reasons the twins were not detected could be that the Paphos hospital has only one modern ultrasound machine, while the other is of older technology and no longer suitable. The health ministry’s permanent secretary Christina Yiannaki refuted his claim, insisting that the hospital in fact has two state of the art ultrasound machines.
The 22-year-old woman, who visited the hospital’s gynaecology clinic for the first time when she was already 19 weeks pregnant, missed her initial prenatal diagnosis of embryos which takes place earlier during gestation. She reportedly also missed a second ultrasound due to the workload at the Limassol general hospital, where pregnant women from Paphos are referred to since there is no specialist doctor on prenatal checks at Paphos hospital.
Matsakis told the Cyprus Mail that due to the fact that the Paphos hospital cannot serve all pregnant women for ultrasounds, many are referred to Limassol, but it is not uncommon for women not to receive the service there either, also due to increased workload.
The health ministry said that it is waiting for the results of both the police investigation and the administrative probe and expressed minister George Pamboridis’ determination to assign any responsibility that may arise.
The opposition AKEL party joined the blame bandwagon and said that shortfalls in the health sector were due to the government slashing costs by €104m in the last two years.
“Sooner or later we would mourn human lives, beyond the shortcomings observed,” the party said in an announcement and called on the government to urgently proceed with the reorganisation of state hospitals “and not to the selling out” of the hospitals, as has been planned within the framework for their autonomy.
