A 25-year-old Queensland woman says she will no longer be able to have children naturally after she claims she was sterilised without her consent by a doctor who had previously been disciplined for a similar mistake.<\/p>\n
Mother-of-two Kaitlyn Boyle, who was admitted to the embattled maternity unit at Gladstone Hospital in January for a routine caesarean section, discovered her fallopian tubes had been permanently removed despite saying she had clearly refused the procedure before surgery. <\/p>\n
Mrs Boyle and her husband Jarrad have lodged a complaint with Gladstone Hospital as well as written to local member Glenn Butcher, with Central Queensland Health confirming the incident was currently being reviewed.<\/p>\n
But a Sunday Mail investigation has found the same obstetrician, Mohamed El Sayed Abdeen, was cautioned a decade ago for performing a tubal ligation on a patient without her consent or knowledge in NSW \u2013 and she only found out seven years later when trying to conceive. <\/p>\n
The Health Care Complaints Commission in 2014 found that Dr Abdeen performed the tubal ligation on the woman \u2013 who was not named in the judgment \u2013 without consent but also failed to record the procedure in any medical record, leaving the woman completely in the dark on her own body for years.<\/p>\n
Ahead of her c-section in January, Mrs Boyle had given written consent to have her fallopian tubes tied during the procedure, but said that minutes before the surgery Dr Abdeen asked if she would verbally consent to a salpingectomy \u2013 which involves the removal of fallopian tubes \u2013 instead.<\/p>\n
The mum had asked for her tubes to be tied due to problems with contraceptives but wanted the option to have children later in life, refusing the salpingectomy unless a medical complication required it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had gone in for the tubal ligation knowing that it could be reversed and there was that chance we could have more kids in the future, but obviously now that choice has been completely taken away from us,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know the only way I\u2019m ever going to have kids again is if I have IVF, which realistically isn\u2019t an option for us considering the cost, that\u2019s why I am working through it with my psychologist at the moment. It\u2019s difficult because, I look at my kids and I\u2019m like oh I\u2019m never going to get that again if that\u2019s what I wanted, so it does upset me.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she was left horrified when Dr Abdeen revealed after the surgery he had removed the organs, saying it was to reduce her risk of ovarian cancer. But Mrs Boyle said she had no risk factors for the disease.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe sterilised me. He took that choice away,\u201d Mrs Boyle, who has two young children, said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf I think about it too much it just escalates to the point where I\u2019m having a mental breakdown.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really impacted my ability to look after my two kids the way I should be able to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Documents from the 2014 inquiry show that the woman, dubbed \u2018Patient A\u2019, unknowingly had her tubes tied by Dr Abdeen at Wagga Wagga Base Hospital in 2003. <\/p>\n
\u201cPatient A stated that when she first saw Dr Abdeen in the antenatal clinic he asked her whether she wished to have a tubal ligation as she was about to have her fourth child by caesarean section,\u201d the public documents reveal.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe said she was very offended by the question as she was only 35 at the time and her sister had a child at the age of 41.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen asked how she became aware that she had had a tubal ligation, she said that after trying two cycles of Clomid (infertility medication) she was advised by (her doctor) that she had had a tubal ligation, and that he had told her that in 25 years of practice he had never seen \u2018anything like this\u2019 happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDr Abdeen said he must have been distracted while writing the report not to have included the tubal ligation, and this was a real deviation from his normal practice,\u201d the HCCC inquiry documents show. <\/p>\n
\u201cDr Abdeen had every opportunity to clarify the patient\u2019s wishes both before and following the performance of the caesarean section, and also to make sure that the consent was documented. He was careless in failing to do so,\u201d the inquiry heard<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite the extremely serious nature of his malpractice, Dr Abdeen was let off with just a caution in 2014 because \u201c11 years had passed since the events in question\u201d and \u201cthere had been no other adverse findings made against Dr Abdeen.\u201d<\/p>\n
The HCCC inquiry found Dr Abdeen\u2019s conduct amounts to unsatisfactory professional conduct in that the care he exercised, according to documents.<\/p>\n
Now, 12 years later, Mrs Boyle said she felt \u201cbetrayed\u201d that she was never informed of the caution against Dr Abdeen and could not believe she was suffering a near-similar fate to Patient A at the hands of the same doctor.<\/p>\n
Premier David Crisafulli said Mrs Boyle deserves justice.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a really, really big issue and Queensland Health have committed to doing a review as we saw in the north of the state,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
it will be independent and it has to drive consequences and it has to drive justice for that woman.\u201d<\/p>\n
Central Queensland Hospital and Health Service Chief Executive Lisa Blackler said that a clinical incident has been recorded and an independent review of the care provided was currently under way.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis includes a detailed clinical assessment led by senior clinicians, examining clinical decision-making, informed consent processes and post-operative care. The outcomes of this review will inform appropriate action in line with Queensland Health policy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to acknowledge the concerns raised by Ms Boyle and her family. We have been in contact with the family to ensure their concerns are fully heard, to outline the review process, and to offer ongoing support,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Central Queensland Health assured the community that the HHS maintains rigorous, transparent recruitment and credentialling processes for all clinicians, including consideration of professional history.<\/p>\n
\u201cPatient safety remains our priority, supported by strong clinical governance and oversight across our health service.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sunday Mail contacted Dr Abdeen for comment but he did not respond before publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 25-year-old Queensland woman says she will no longer be able to have children naturally after she claims…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":739821,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[357025,64,63,357023,52165,357018,11387,279231,357030,357035,357042,357046,357043,357041,50835,137,5266,1166,500,53244,357037,357040,357028,357027,357036,357045,293554,182378,357034,357026,357032,357033,357019,357029,357044,357020,357031,357022,357024,357039,357038,357021],"class_list":["post-739820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-antenatal-clinic","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-caesarean-section","tag-central-queensland","tag-central-queensland-hospital","tag-chief-executive","tag-clinical-decision-making","tag-clinical-governance","tag-clinical-incident","tag-consent-processes","tag-credentialling-processes","tag-detailed-clinical-assessment","tag-fallopian-tubes","tag-gladstone-hospital","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-health-service","tag-healthcare","tag-independent-review","tag-infertility-medication","tag-kaitlyn-boyle","tag-lisa-blacer","tag-lisa-blackler","tag-medical-complication","tag-mohamed-el-sayed-abdeen","tag-ongoing-support","tag-post-operative-care","tag-professional-history","tag-public-documents-reveal","tag-qld-hospital","tag-real-deviation","tag-review-process","tag-routine-caesarean","tag-routine-caesarean-section","tag-senior-clinicians","tag-transparent-recruitment","tag-tubal-ligation","tag-united-states-department-of-health-and-human-services","tag-unsatisfactory-professional-conduct","tag-william-debois","tag-written-consent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=739820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/739821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=739820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=739820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=739820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}