A healthy pregnant woman who visited Prague’s Bulovka University Hospital on Monday for a routine check-up miscarried after curettage surgery, due to a mix-up of patients, both of whom were foreign women living permanently in the Czech Republic, CNN Prima News reported earlier.
The Health Ministry told CTK it considered the incident an inexcusable failure of human factors.
The hospital has apologised to the family and is ready to compensate the patient, and those who were to blame for it have already been taken off duty, ministry spokesman Ondrej Jakob said.
“The hospital director and the head of the gynaecology and obstetrics clinic have informed the Ministry of Health about the undesirable incident, which happened at the Bulovka University Hospital on 25 March. The ministry expresses its deep regret to the patient and the whole family,” Jakob said.
He noted that the hospital would be informing the office about further steps to be taken against the employees who had made the mistakes, and would address the situation.
According to CNN Prima News, the pregnant woman went to the Bulovka hospital for a routine check-up, while the other woman was due to undergo curettage, performed to treat a diseased uterus, for example, but also used to terminate pregnancy. However, the two patients were mixed up and the healthy pregnant woman miscarried as a result.
“According to the findings so far, as a result of a serious violation of internal regulations on the part of the employees concerned, the surgical procedure was initiated on the incorrectly identified patient,” Bulovka spokeswoman Eva Stolejda Libigerova told CNN Prima News.
The staff responsible for the mix-up are off duty and the hospital is investigating the incident.
“If violations of mandatory working procedures are revealed as part of the ongoing internal investigation, specific individuals will be held personally responsible for it,” the spokeswoman added.
