An Australian women’s hospital reportedly killed a preborn child by performing a hysterectomy on a biological woman attempting to become a man.
The patient, 38-year-old Jesse Pohlner, said during an August 9 interview with 3AW that the hospital did not administer a pregnancy test prior to surgery and Pohlner mistook morning sickness for “reflux.” The hospital had Pohlner run through a series of yes or no questions that ultimately determined a pregnancy test wasn’t necessary, Pohlner said.
Pohlner scheduled the surgery in 2021 and underwent it while four months pregnant. According to Pohlner, the hospital said the hysterectomy would have been required regardless due to the fact that the placenta was growing into Pohlner’s c-section scar. Pohlner’s description appeared to be referring to placenta accreta, which is a dangerous condition necessitating a hysterectomy or removal of a woman’s uterus.
3AW’s Neil Mitchell asked Pohlner, “if you had known you were pregnant, you would have gone ahead with the birth?”
Pohlner, who is married with six children, responded: “I would have chosen myself to keep going along but what I did not know is that I still required the hysterectomy because the placenta was failing and had grown into my c-section scar.”
The surgery was intended to last three hours with a one-night stay but instead, Pohlner said, “I ended up waking up in ICU [Intensive Care Unit] after nine hours and I was there for about a week.”
Pohlner described the situation as resulting from “hospital negligence,” adding that “the policy let my doctors down and they couldn’t perform their best work.”
The Royal Women’s Hospital said it had changed its policy for pregnancy tests last year. “The previous procedure involved asking patients about any recent menstrual or sexual activity,” the hospital said, according to 3AW. “The new procedure involves a blood test to exclude pregnancy.”
A hospital spokeswoman told the Daily Mail, “For privacy reasons, the Women’s is not able to comment on individual patient case. However, we can confirm that the Women’s changed its pre-op pregnancy test procedure last year.” She also said that patients can opt out of the blood test to exclude pregnancy.
The timeline of the surgery is unclear but Pohlner indicated that the complications prompted a policy change the next day.
“They said the next day they changed policy overnight,” Pohlner said, “as an emergency team was called but when I look through their documents, their dates don’t match up.”
A spokesperson for the Victorian government said, “We are sorry to hear of this patient’s experience and understand a range of supports were offered to the patient at the time of this incident. Hearing firsthand from patients about their experience is critical and we welcome any and all feedback so we can continue to work on how we can serve Victorians best.”
While speaking with 3AW, Pohlner said the hospital sent a pre-op email asserting that a pregnancy test might be needed if Pohlner were relying on prior sexual activity or recent periods as indicators.
Pohlner is calling for a statewide mandate for human chorionic gonadotropin or HCG blood testing. “If it comes back that there is HCG in the body, I do not want them to automatically cancel surgery,” Pohlner said. “I want them to then do a[n] ultrasound to detect the location and the viability.”
Pohlner added that “if they had canceled surgery, I would not be here.”
Pohlner also said, “I’m pro-choice but for myself I’m against abortion for my own personal self, so I would have tried to go ahead with the surgery.”
Hysterectomy in response to placenta accreta is not considered an abortion, as the intent is not to kill the baby.
