Abortionist Remains Licensed Despite Botched Abortion

By Liz Townsend

Despite finding him guilty of gross professional conduct for a botched abortion, a committee of the British General Medical Council (GMC) refused to take away abortionist Andrew Gbinigie's right to practice medicine, allowing him to continue performing abortions. The case has caused a huge amount of controversy, with the British press and public calling for a more thorough investigation and harsher penalties.

A 21-year-old woman, identified only as Miss A, sought to abort her 20-week-old unborn baby at the Calthorpe Clinic in Birmingham in November 2000, according to Press Association (PA) News. During the abortion, Gbinigie perforated her uterus and removed her right ovary and fallopian tube, PA News reported.

Not realizing anything was wrong, Gbinigie continued to use forceps to pull tissue from Miss A's abdomen. When he noticed the tissue was a pinkish brown color, he realized he was pulling out her bowel. "I said, 'oh what a disaster. I have perforated the uterus,'" Gbinigie testified at the medical council hearing, according to PA News.

Miss A was sent by ambulance to Birmingham Women's Hospital. At the hearing, prosecutor Vivian Robinson told the council that surgeons found her abdomen "full of blood and floating on top was a 20-week-old foetus, largely intact apart from a missing arm and a missing leg,"

PA News reported.

The woman also lost a kidney, and doctors do not think she will be able to have more children, according to The Sun.

Nigerian-born Gbinigie immigrated to Britain in 1984, The Sun reported. At the committee hearing, he claimed to have performed over 1,000 abortions in his career.

However, officials at hospitals and clinics where he was employed told the Evening Chronicle he was not qualified to abort babies older than 14 weeks.

In addition to the botched abortion charges, Gbinigie was also accused of sexually harassing a midwife and another hospital worker, attempting to kiss and fondle them. Although the GMC committee found that he did botch the abortion and harass the women, they were seen as isolated incidents that did not warrant harsh punishment, according to The Sun.

"The committee finds the operation on Miss A, though disastrous in its ultimate outcome, did not represent a pattern of incompetent surgery," committee chair Barbara Grant-Braham told Gbinigie at the hearing, according to PA News. "The committee also heard that there has been no repetition of your improper conduct towards female colleagues."

The committee allowed Gbinigie to perform abortions on babies younger than 12 weeks, as long as the clinic has access to emergency services, PA News reported. After further training and education, the committee said Gbinigie would be able to abort older babies as well.

An immediate outcry arose in the country, with many insisting that a doctor who botched a procedure so severely should lose his license to practice medicine, known as being "struck off" the list of approved physicians.

"It is a travesty of justice that gynaecologist Andrew Gbinigie is being allowed by the General Medical Council to carry on operating," wrote The Sun in an editorial. "This sends out the completely wrong message, suggesting that there are almost no limits to what a surgeon can get away with before being struck off."

The organization Action for Victims of Medical Accidents insisted that the GMC's decision "would cause further damage to public confidence in the way doctors are regulated," PA News reported.

The Sun has run several articles asking for more women who have been mistreated by Gbinigie to contact the newspaper and tell their stories. Several women have told of botched hysterectomies, a recommendation for an abortion on a healthy baby, and other egregious errors. "The Sun has called for him to be banned," the newspaper stated.

Shadow health secretary Dr. Liam Fox has asked the GMC to investigate the Gbinigie case further.