BBC: Hospitals warned on vagina swabs

Midwives and other staff involved in delivering babies are being warned about leaving swabs inside the vaginas of women who have just given birth.

The National Patient Safety Agency has issued an alert across England and Wales urging staff to take more care.

The watchdog has received reports of 99 cases where the swabs have been left inside women over the past two years.

While this is a small fraction of the 500,000 births a year, the NPSA said it still wanted to improve standards.


more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/10167843.stm

:spray: :rofl:

and no, this is not a justification, if you have a full ward and babies are popping right and left... that is an EASY mistake to make... with tired staff...

And I am sure it happens in the US... alas obtaining NATIONAL stats will be harder to do due to the highly fractured nature of our health care system.

Ew.

a severed toe, for instance, they would let me sit there bleeding while they asked me when my last period was. Geez, I don't keep up with that mess. It happens. I suffer, then go on with my life and try to forget it happened until next time. Why the fuck do they always ask that? Just because I'm a woman? I doubt they ask men that. They just patch the men up. Meanwhile, I'm sitting there bleeding from every orifice BUT that one and they want to play games and waste time while I try to remember when the damn thing was.

Twenty years ago, I stepped through an upside down aquarium and cut my leg in several places, blood everywhere. They asked me when my last period was. It's not my period, dumbasses. I cut my fucking leg. I got whacked in the head with a hammer a 7 years ago and they fucking asked me when my last period was. :wtf:

I wish the fuck I could get some damn respect from hospital staff. I'm more than my goddamn period. The world doesn't revolve around it. I certainly don't make that big a deal over it. Why do they? :wtf:

All of a sudden you are passed out from the whack to the head and they pump stuff into you to save you - killing the baby that you were not aware you were carrying and it didn't seem relevant to to tell them that you x days late.

because men don't get pregnant (yes, they ask just because you are a woman). Some of the medical procedures they may do to you could seriously harm your baby (X-rays, medications, etc). If they didn't ask all women who are of child bearing age this question and then killed a baby the woman didn't know she was carrying...well they would likely end up being sued.

I don't consider it that difficult to give them an answer to that, considering why they ask. I may not know exactly when it was, but I can basically pin it down to a general time frame. If there is any doubt, they can always run a pregnancy test on you. But, it cost less to just ask women when their last period was.

Truthfully, I think they show more respect to ask than to just kill any child you may be carrying.

(on a side note, when I've been asked lately, I tell them I got my tubes tied and no more questions asked. They really don't give a shit when your period was, just whether you may potentially be pregnant and that's the easiest way to pinpoint that possibility)

Because you could be pregnant. You can't honestly not know that...

"I doubt they ask men that."

They don't...because men don't have vaginas and they don't get pregnant.

I mean, surgical cotton or sponges used to soak up something, yes.

But swabs? A hunk of cotton attached to a wooden (or plastic) stick?

Swabs aren't meant to be left someplace. They're meant to retrieve something, and then be pulled out of whatever orifice they've gone into.

Wouldn't this be the same as a doctor going in for a throat swab, then "forgetting" the entire swab?

Or some guy using a Q-tip on his ears and leaving it there by accident when the doorbell rings?

I dunno...maybe it's me. But it seems simple enough. Hold onto the swab, get what you're after, pull the swab out.



Or maybe there's a difference between "swabs" in the UK as opposed to swabs in the US?