Miscarrying during a pandemic
Patient sat alone for hours while family was forced to wait outside
Warning: This article contains graphic imagery some readers might find distressing.
A woman who suffered a mis-carraige, enduring the devastating experience alone at the Health Sciences Centre emergency department, says when her boyfriend wasn't allowed to be with her, it compounded the tormenting loss.
“I'm not writing this for pity or sympathy from anyone, I'm sharing my story because for one, if a baby is being brought into this world, the partner is allowed in the hospital with the mother but when you're experiencing the loss of a baby, you can't,” the woman said in a message to The Telegram.
She was referring to the Eastern Health COVID-19 rules in place when she had a miscarriage last month and was seen at the Health Sciences Centre emergency department.
She doesn't want her name used due to privacy concerns, but said her mother, a retired nurse, is making a formal complaint to Eastern Health.
The woman also said not enough people talk publicly about miscarriages.
In 2013, Eastern Health directed staff to make sure psychosocial support is offered to women who miscarry after numerous women and their spouses — nearly 20 people — contacted The Telegram and the newspaper told many of their stories. Most of them involved the Health Sciences Centre ER in St. John's.
Overwhelmingly, those who contacted The Telegram about their personal experiences expressed dismay at their treatment, where they said the emotional trauma of their pregnancy coming to an end fell by the wayside.
At the time, The Telegram was told emergency department staff can consult the psychiatric nurse on duty to support a patient in crisis, and there are full-time social work staff in the city's hospitals.
Patients are also supposed to be offered the number for Eastern Health's mental health crisis line, where support can be provided and a referral made for counselling.
Now, with COVID-19 restrictions in place, the woman says she wasn't pointed towards any psychosocial resources to pursue, nor was she even given a crisis line number.
“Nothing,” she said.
She went back to her family doctor for after care.
The woman said she spent an agonizing several hours at the hospital. In the beginning it looked like only a few people were waiting. She understood she could be bumped by life and death emergencies.
Alone with a bare pillow, shaking from the cold and with no tissues in the intake room, her cries were loud and unstoppable once she got the news.
“We lost a life here. This was supposed to be a baby,” she said.
Sent home with a prescription — among three options given to her, the others being a surgical procedure or allowing the remains to pass naturally — the woman said she didn't know what to expect.
“It was horrific. No one should have to sit on their own toilet and deal with that,” she said.
“At times I thought I would pass out with the pain.… 'You'll get some cramping.' That is what I was told.”
The woman was 14 weeks along when the ordeal happened.
“(The remains are) literally the shape and the form. It may be tiny, but it is there and it is devastating. You don't know what to do at that point. What do you do from there?”
It all began when the woman turned up the emergency room at 2:45 a.m. one evening in May.
She filled out the screening sheet and her boyfriend was told to wait outside.
At that point, the women was having spotting, but no pain. The nurse was sweet, but busy, she said. She had bloodwork taken.
She reassured herself she was fine, even though she was terrified.
"I tossed and I turned in the chair, about every 20 minutes I looked at the clock — 4:20 a.m., 4:43 a.m., 5:05 a.m. I heard every single patient that entered the emergency room complain and ask how much longer. The response: ‘I don't know,'" she recounted.
"My heart broke, they were in pain, they have been waiting, some longer than I have. I saw the cops come take a statement. I also heard every comment, every dig and each opinion of the nurses, doctors and techs had to say about each and every one of us sat out in that waiting room. I even thought to myself, they really must think I can't hear.”
Around 7 a.m., she could barely breathe through her mask as she was crying so loud.
At 7:30 a.m., her name was finally called and, close to 8 a.m., the doctor arrived and she was told she needed more tests.
It was 9:30 a.m. before she was wheeled to the Janeway for an ultrasound and brought back again alone to hear the news that she'd had a miscarraige.
“The doctor continued to talk, and I couldn't hear a word, just mumbles ... you know, like in the movies. just like that,” she said.
Her boyfriend was still waiting in the parking lot with her mother. Around 10:30 a.m., she was told she could go outside and see her family and then would be let back in.
A nurse called to tell her the gynecologist was ready to see her.
The gynecologist was compassionate, explained how common it was to have a miscarriage, and made her feel like she wasn't alone.
Close to 11:30 a.m., she was finally allowed to go home.
“Once again, I can't remember walking out, I can't remember the walk to the car or the drive home. All I can remember was the fear of having to tell my daughter, the fear of the unknown, the fear of 'what now?'"
“Our little baby that we were supposed to hold and cuddle on November 14th was, in a blink of an eye, no more. … Our hearts are broken and my heart breaks for any woman and family that will have to experience a miscarriage.”
Eastern Health can't discuss individual cases for privacy reasons.
But a spokeswoman said in an emailed statement that (at the time the request for a response was made) people attending urgent and emergent appointments and emergency departments at Eastern Health facilities are permitted a support person to accompany them under certain circumstances: those accompanying children to appointments, individuals who require physical assistance and those who have cognitive impairments and require a support person.
The measures are implemented in an effort to keep patients, physicians, and staff safe and to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19.
As for the way miscarriages are handled, and whether anything would be different during COVID-19 in terms of resources to help those patients, Eastern Health had not answered those questions as of The Telegram's print deadline.
“At times I thought I would pass out with the pain.… ‘You’ll get some cramping.’ That is what I was told.”
“Once again, I can’t remember walking out, I can’t remember the walk to the car or the drive home. All I can remember was the fear of having to tell my daughter, the fear of the unknown, the fear of ‘what now?’”