This tragic couple had their twin baby dreams dashed after bungling medics allegedly misdiagnosed the woman with cancer and the treatment killed the unborn infants inside her.
According to local media, 35-year-old Serpil Baga is suing doctors at the Sakarya Gynaecology Public Hospital in the north-western Turkish province of Sakarya for negligence.
The mother-of-two first went to the hospital with complaints of pain and internal bleeding and was diagnosed with a tumour on one of her ovaries, which was removed on 11th June 2018.
The surgery was considered successful and Baga spent the next three months attending regular checkups and treatment.
In September 2018, she was diagnosed with high levels of the human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) hormone which usually appears in cases of womb cancer or pregnancy.
According to Baga, doctors believed that the high hormone level was down to growing cancer cells and did not even bother to test her for pregnancy.
She started chemotherapy on 19th September 2018 and continued with the treatment until December when she reportedly realised that she was producing breast milk.
Baga claimed that the doctors told her this was normal and possibly due to hormonal changes due to the chemotherapy.
She was then reportedly diagnosed with two tumours on her womb which measured 12 and 19 centimetres in length.
Several days before Baga was due to undergo surgery to remove the two ‘tumours’, she started to bleed heavily and miscarried twins, according to local media.
The stunned family has launched a lawsuit against the doctors, who they reportedly allege never told her that she should avoid becoming pregnant after the first tumour was removed, in case the cancer returned.
Husband Muhammet Baga said: “I went back to the doctor and asked him how he didn’t know my wife was pregnant. He said to me ‘children are unimportant, what matters is that your wife is alive’.
“Regardless of whether it was deliberately or not, I think this is a case of medical negligence, because they did not do all the necessary checkups, so I will not forgive them.
“We have a disabled son, we left him in the care of other people for three months, so I could take my wife to the hospital every day for chemotherapy.
“Instead of receiving the fantastic news that we would be expecting twins, my healthy wife was misdiagnosed with cancer and treated for nothing.
“I have started the legal procedure and we hope that the doctors will be punished accordingly.”
To find out more about the author, editor or agency that supplied this story – please click below.
Story By: Sibel Abdiu, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder,Agency: Asia Wire Report
