Teenager 'handed stillborn baby in bottle'
21 July 2004
A 14-year-old girl was handed her stillborn baby in a plastic specimen bottle and told to take it home by staff at a flagship hospital.

The teenager's shocked parents put the 11-week-old foetus in the family fridge before complaining to hospital bosses.

Staff at Bishop Auckland Hospital, in County Durham, gave the girl no explanation as to why she had to take the stillborn child home as they handed her the jar.

When the teenager's parents rang the hospital to complain, officials sent a midwife and an undertaker to collect it.

The County Durham and Darlington Acute Hospitals Trust said it would be "issuing guidance on how to deal with a similar situation in the future".

The girl began to miscarry on Monday lunchtime and sought medical help at the £67 million PFI hospital, which was hailed as a flagship development when it was opened by Prime Minister Tony Blair two years ago.

But the teenager and her mother were left stunned when hospital staff handed them the foetus, by now placed in a specimen bottle enclosed in a blue plastic bag and a brown padded envelope.

They were told to take it home overnight and to return it to the gynaecology department the following day.

The schoolgirl's mother told The Northern Echo: "We saw a nurse and a doctor who told us to take the foetus back for the night. They didn't explain and we were too upset to argue. We felt numb.

"They took it away then brought it back and put it in an envelope. When we got home all we could think of to do was to put in the fridge.

"We are all upset about it, especially as I lost a baby myself recently. It was very insensitive, particularly in view of my daughter's age.

"We knew our daughter was pregnant. She was looking forward to having the baby after what happened to me. Now she is devastated."

A trust spokesman said: "The trust has looked into what happened, and will be issuing guidance on how to deal with a similar situation in the future.

"Given the age of the child involved, we cannot release a more detailed statement on this issue."


mmm, after danac's stories and what i see in the paper - i think we should definitely strive to clone the UK's medical system.

Having private insurance is no guarantee of good (or even competant) care. My niece became seriously ill at age one. Her mother took her to the pediatrician three times and each time was told it was nothing to worry about, just a flu with a rash (viral exantham)---give her some tylenol and fluids. The child eventually ended up in the ER with a fever of 104, was given a bag of fluids and SENT HOME. They couldn't find any locus of infection--no pus-y ear or throat, no festering wound anywhere, urinanalysis was clear. So, with no idea why this child was acting as if she were in a battle against some real bacterial meanie, they sent her home. Turns out she was suffering from meningeococcal meningitis (bacterial meningitis-needs antibiotcis to recover). By the time they figured that one out, she was comatose and in ICU. She is now deaf due to the infection that raged for nearly five days. My ex sister-in-law had taken her to the pediatrician three times and to the Children's Hospital here in town twice before anyone noticed that a child under the age of one with a fever of 104 with NO locus of infection MIGHT have meningitis. This is first year medical student simple. It still blows my mind.

That is fucked up. Not only for the reason the story was published but that her mum was happy her fucking 14y.o daughter was having a kid.

:yelsick: i know. that is what i thought when i read it. the only thing better would be if the father was a blood relative. i can hear the mother now... "well, we're proud of our daughter, she done right by keepin' it in the fambly. we's gonna git along real well with our new in-laws, they's like kinfolk already" sounds like it may have come out of the hills of kentucky.

Well, they didn't want it to spoil, right?

i don't blame them - i don't want my son to be spoiled. :greenface

i'm going to go find some way to repay society for that last comment, sorry.

I recently had something similar happen to my grandma. She went into the hospital for a routine surgery on her stomach. It was suppose to be an out patient proceeder with her home that evening. Instead of being home that night she was in the ICU in critical condition. Something had gone wrong with the surgery and she started to bleed internally. They took her back to the OR and opened her up again to try and find the source of the bleeding. They though it was a kidney that was causing it so they removed it and stitched her back up. 4 hours later she was still bleeding internally and no one seemed willing to do anything more for her. They kept pumping blood into her (5 liters) but none of it was coming out, and because they had put so much blood in her, it was putting pressure on her chest and making it so the respirator couldn't breath for her any more. Doctors said she was now in danger of heart failure because of the pressure on her chest but they still weren't doing anything to fix the problem. They just kept pumping more blood in and telling us "not to worry she will be ok" while the nurses standing behind them are shaking their heads no. My dad called a friend who is a head nurse at a large hospital 20 miles away and asked her what she thought he should do. She told him to take the risk and move her. She said to get her out of that hospital and over to hers, because if she stayed where she was she would die. They moved her and his friend called the head of surgery and asked him to come on his day off and operate. When he opened her up he found her spleen had been nicked and was the cause of all the internal bleeding. He ended up removing half of it as he couldn't fix the hole. She did recover, but it was a touchy few days.

Stupid doctors at the first hospital were the ones who cause the whole problem to start with and they all just stood around watching her get worse. I am convinced she would have died if she stayed in that hospital, and the only reason we were able to save her is because we knew the right person at a better hospital who pulled some strings for us. Not everyone is that lucky, and it really shouldn't be that way.