A mum has accused a hospital of giving her 'poor treatment' after she was told she had suffered a miscarriage when she was actually still pregnant.
Nicole Racher, 27, from Broadfield, West Sussex went through two weeks of hell believing she had lost her first child – but a later scan revealed he was alive and developing normally.
Little Loki was eventually born on August 19 last year, and the hospital issued a full apology to Nicole and her partner Kyle.
Nicole has decided to go public with her story as she prepares for Loki's first birthday. Speaking to the Crawley News, she explained how she had ended up in the A&E department at East Surrey hospital after she began to bleed in February, 2012. Staff their transferred to the early pregnancy unit where she was asked to provide a urine sample.
"Kyle helped me to walk to the toilet, and it felt like I passed something quite large," she said.
"I thought I'd had a miscarriage."
Nicole claims a nurse merely shrugged her shoulders when she told her, and asked if she had kept what she had passed.
'Extremely distressed' Nicole said she asked to be taken to a private room but was told there were none available, and after waiting for four hours without being given any medical attention, she discharged herself.
"My mother had been told a doctor was busy dealing with other emergencies, so I gathered from that my situation had not been regarded as an emergency," she said.
The day after, Nicole passed out and stopped breathing. She was rushed back to East Surrey, where she was examined by a doctor and told to go home and rest.
Nicole still assumed she had suffered a miscarriage – and no one told her otherwise. It was only when she went for a scan on February 22 to make sure she did not have an infection that doctors told her she was still pregnant.
"I felt mixed emotions. I was happy, but it seemed like it was some kind of sick joke," she said.
Loki was born in August, 2012 by emergency Caesarean section. During his delivery, doctors discovered three blood clots which had caused the earlier heavy bleeding.
Nicole says that she wants to raise awareness of her experience at the hospital to help other parents.
Lynda Filby, the matron at East Surrey who dealt with Nicole's complaint said she would be 'very happy' to speak to her to discuss 'any areas of concern'.
"I understand that this patient did not have a good experience and I apologise for this," she said.
"I would like to reassure readers that this experience is unusual and not the standard we expect."
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