A MIDWIFE wrongly carried out an examination on a pregnant woman that led to her being rushed into surgery, a tribunal heard.

Fiona Baillie-Hamilton artificially broke the waters of a high risk patient, but caused an internal rupture – and then claimed the injury had been caused ‘spontaneously’.

The nurse was working at The Royal Blackburn Hospital when the patient came in to the delivery suite in July 2007.

The baby’s head was high up in the pelvis and the patient was considered at high risk of complication.

Another midwife saw Baillie-Hamilton about to begin an examination but ‘within minutes of her leaving the room, the emergency buzzer sounded,’ said Jamie Hunt for the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

“The patient was immediately taken to theatre. The midwife noted the examination pack was on the trolley, but she noticed an Amnihook.”

Bloodstains on the implement had been caused when Baillie-Hamilton broke the internal membrane during the examination, he claimed.

Baillie-Hamilton then wrote in the patient record that the membrane had spontaneously ruptured.

During an investigation at the hospital the midwife admitted to not reading the patient's records before performing an examination.

She went on to admit that she had performed the examination, but that she had not used the hook intentionally, he added.

A week earlier a patient had been admitted to the ward with high blood pressure and abnormal levels of protein in her urine.

After the patient's baby was delivered a doctor requested that she be returned to the central delivery suite for regular observations.

Ballie-Hamilton failed to carry out checks properly and changed the patient's records.

During a meeting with her bosses at the hospital Baillie-Hamilton admitted she had not tested the patient's urine and that she had retrospectively altered the patient's records.

Baillie-Hamilton, who is at the central London hearing, admits all charges apart from those relating to her actions being dishonest, and the charge relating to her having inaccurately recorded the membrane rupture as spontaneous rather than artificial.

She further submits that her fitness to practise was impaired in 2007, but that it is not now.

(Proceeding)