Ipswich Hospital miscarriage horror: Mum claims she bled for three months

An Ipswich mum has shared the toll a horrific three-month miscarriage nightmare took on her as she calls for her local hospital to be held accountable.

‘Bleeding for three months’: Mum’s hospital horror claim after nightmare miscarriage.

An Ipswich mum has shared the toll a horrific three-month miscarriage nightmare, which included bleeding all over hospital floors and a shock diagnosis, took on her as she calls for her local hospital to be held accountable.

Breanna Tottle said she first realised in September last year that something was badly wrong with her second pregnancy.

“I had woken up and there was a bit of blood … and then I noticed that my morning sickness was gone,” she said.

Ms Tottle said she usually felt so sick (when pregnant) that she could not eat in the morning, so when she felt fine that day she immediately went on high alert.

“I was just like ‘something’s happened, something very bad has happened’,” she said.

“I absolutely freaked out and went to emergency down at Ipswich (Hospital) and told them ‘I think I’m having a miscarriage’.”

Although a doctor initially told her not to worry and that it was normal to bleed in the first trimester, a pregnancy scan soon confirmed her worst fears.

“I got the scan and there was no heartbeat – which was devastating, obviously,” Ms Tottle said.

“I was only nine weeks in but it was still … yeah.”

Ipswich mum Breanna Tottle.

Ms Tottle believed what she had experienced was a “missed miscarriage’’.

“Basically, my body hasn’t realised that the baby’s passed yet,” she said.

Over the coming months her body struggled to “finish’’ the miscarriage and it was during those months her concerns with her hospital treatment started.

Ms Tottle said she was initially given three options, which were to wait it out, take some tablets to kickstart the miscarriage or have surgery to remove the contents of her uterus.

After a week hoping things would take their own course, Ms Tottle tried the tablets but was rushed to the hospital the next morning with major blood loss.

She said she was kept there overnight and was told by hospital staff they would run a scan in the morning.

“I was like, oh are you sure? And she (a doctor) said ‘it doesn’t feel like there’s anything left in there, so you can go home’,” Ms Tottle said.

“That sent red flags to me but I dismissed them because you know she’s a doctor.”

Three days later, she was rushed back to the hospital in immense pain.

She said a doctor discovered there was still more matter left in her uterus but was unable to do a scan at the time and discharged her with painkillers.

Tragically, her troubles were to continue for months longer.

West Moreton Health said it did not comment publicly on the individual circumstances of a patient’s treatment.

“However, we are always concerned when we hear that a patient has had a poor experience in our care,’’ a spokesman said.

“In this case, our consumer liaison office has reached out to Ms Tottle to begin a review of her treatment.”

Ms Tottle said she was currently looking at obtaining legal advice.

“I just want to know if there’s something I can do, because I feel like the way that I’ve been treated is just so, so poorly,” she said.

She said the trouble continued into November when she started bleeding more heavily and another scan revealed her uterus was still full of pregnancy matter.

“(It) baffled me because the doctor told me it was all over,” Ms Tottle said.

She then started getting weekly blood tests to monitor her hCG (human Chorionic Gonadotropin) levels, as they suggested her body “still thought it was pregnant”.

The level of hCG in the bloodstream is usually much higher in pregnant women than in non-pregnant women or men.

Ms Tottle said that during one blood test she “bled all over the floor”.

But an early-pregnancy staffer at Ipswich Hospital told her there was “no point” contemplating surgery or doing another scan as “that should be everything”.

Ms Tottle said she continued to bleed for the next few months.

Things reached a tipping point in early January when she was experiencing extreme abdominal pain.

She called 13 HEALTH and the staffer told her to go to emergency immediately, as she was at high risk of infection.

Ipswich mum Breanna Tottle.

Ms Tottle said she waited for about six or seven hours at the hospital to see a doctor, who ran a test and confirmed her suspicions that she had an infection.

She stayed the night as the doctor told her they would run a scan in the morning but when a different doctor saw her the next day he told her that she did not have an infection.

She was given antibiotics but was told they would have to call in a sonographer for the scan.

“That’s when I decided I want nothing to with Ipswich Hospital any more,” she said.

Ms Tottle spoke to her general practitioner, who she said told her they were “astonished’’ she had been bleeding for three months by that stage.

She eventually got another scan through a private practice which showed her uterus was still full.

To her shock, blood test results also showed she was anaemic as she had been bleeding for so long.

“I’ve been bleeding for three months and all they’re really doing is blood tests … that didn’t bring red flags to them that something might be wrong?” she said.

“Thursday I went in and got surgery, Friday morning the bleeding stopped.

“It’s a relief, because this is the end of it finally … I feel the most normal that I have felt since before I ever got pregnant.”

Ms Tottle said it was only after learning she had an infection and anaemia that her concerns about her treatment at the Ipswich Hospital hit home.

“From the Ipswich Hospital’s care I’ve just been getting worse, then as soon as I go private, I’m fixed. That’s insane,” she said.

Ms Tottle said the experience had also taken a mental toll on her and she started seeing a psychologist about a month after the initial miscarriage.

“I was not mentally coping with it very well and pretty much up until – maybe since I got the surgery — I have just been such a mess,” she said.

“The bleeding was just a constant reminder that I’d had a miscarriage and I felt like it was just never going to end, honestly.”