Woman who had miscarriage at Surrey hospital seeks answers over alleged poor standard of care

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

Kirandeep Kaur Mangat was preparing to go to bed on May 12 when she started experiencing severe pain. 

Mangat, who lives in Surrey, B.C., and was 18 weeks pregnant at the time, called 911. After being advised that the ambulance wait times were anywhere from 25 minutes to an hour, Mangat's husband Rajinder decided to drive her to Surrey Memorial Hospital to seek help. 

But instead of receiving emergency care, Mangat says she endured a harrowing ordeal that ended with her having a miscarriage in a hospital room after a doctor told her to go home for the night.

"I was shocked. I was sitting on the bed, quiet, not saying a word, in trauma," said Mangat.

She is now speaking out about the inadequate level of care she says she received at Surrey Memorial's emergency room. 

Fraser Health has extended its condolences to Mangat and her family for their loss, but the health authority has declined to comment directly on her case.

'Come back tomorrow'

Mangat says her experience at the hospital was upsetting from the beginning. She claims it took the emergency physician more than two hours to attend to her, and she was then told there were no ultrasound machines available to examine her. 

She says despite her telling the physician that something felt wrong about her pregnancy, the doctor prescribed her morphine and asked her to go home and "come back tomorrow."

Mangat says the pain kept increasing as minutes went by, and she ended up having a miscarriage in the hospital room with only her husband present. 

"I was suffering and the nurses left, and meanwhile, the baby released," Mangat said.

Mangat claims her husband went to seek help several times while she was having the miscarriage but nobody attended her until she was holding the fetus in her hands.

She said she asked a nurse for a container to put the fetus in so it could be sent to a pathology lab but was told they didn't have a proper container handy. Then the nurse asked Mangat and her husband to leave without any follow-up tests. 

"They even did not check my health, if I am OK or not, they just asked us to leave," said Mangat. 

"We came back home at 3 [a.m.] without any moral support, without any help from the staff."

CBC News has seen Mangat's hospital records, which confirm that she had a miscarriage on May 13. 

Condolences

Mangat says she has yet to hear any satisfactory response from Fraser Health over the way she claims she was treated at Surrey Memorial. 

After making a complaint to the Ministry of Health on May 14, she was redirected to Fraser Health. She received an email from the health authority on June 20, in which it sent condolences and offered to direct Mangat's complaint to the appropriate person. 

In an email sent to CBC, Fraser Health said a patient who miscarries while in an emergency department can be put in touch with a social worker before they leave the hospital "to ensure their physical and mental well-being."

But Mangat says she wasn't offered any support until more than a month later when, in an email on June 22, Fraser Health offered to put her in touch with the authority's social worker in the family birthing unit at Surrey Memorial. 

Other than these two emails acknowledging Mangat's complaint and offering to connect her with a social worker, Mangat says Fraser Health hasn't addressed any of her concerns about her experience at the hospital.

According to the authority's website, Fraser Health can take up to 40 business days to respond to a complaint, including "any decisions and actions taken as a result of [the] complaint."

Mother's safety is priority: doctor

Experts underscore the importance of immediate help, both physical and psychological, for anyone who has a miscarriage.

Dr. Anthony Fong, a member of B.C. Emergency Medicine Network and clinical assistant professor at UBC Department of Emergency Medicine, says the mother's safety is the priority. 

"The most important thing really in miscarriage is to make sure that there is no life-threatening bleed happening and that there are no other complications, such as an infection," he said.

Dr. Diane Francoeur, the CEO of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada, says anyone who loses a child needs exceptional care and companionship, including services that hospitals can provide in terms of psychological help. 

"What we have to remember as health-care providers is that every time a woman loses a child, she should not be left alone," she said. 

Neither Fong nor Francoeur commented specifically on Mangat's case.

Mangat says the trauma of her experience has lingered with her and her husband. 

"Tears come in my eyes suddenly without saying anything," she said. 

"We are still struggling with this situation. It's really hard."

She says no one should go through what she suffered, and is calling on Fraser Health to "make the system better."

"They cannot pay me back but I'm trying to bring this thing in front of everyone so that we can figure out a solution, so it won't happen again in the future. That's my only motive."

This story is part of Situation Critical, a series from CBC British Columbia reporting on the barriers people in this province face in accessing timely and appropriate health care.