Free Republic

HALIFAX – Officials at New Brunswick’s largest health authority deliberated for three months whether to inform the public about unsterilized biopsy forceps before finally releasing the information and advising patients to get tested for hepatitis and HIV last year. Documents recently released under access-to-information laws outline how staff with the Horizon Health Network spent weeks trying to assess the risk to patients who may have been exposed to forceps that were not appropriately sterilized at the Miramichi Regional Hospital for 14 years. Emails between the health authority’s administrators indicate there was uncertainty and conflicting opinions about whether to notify patients...

Olivia Marie Coats lived for five days after her parents allege a forceps delivery crushed her little skull and caused brain death. Now, they have launched a Facebook campaign to stop the use of forceps in all births. Allen Coats, 25, and his fiancee Rachel Melancon, 24, say they will sue their obstetrician, Dr. George T. Backardjiev, but not The Medical Center of Southeast Texas, where their daughter was born on Dec. 28. The baby was transferred that day to Houston's Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital, which confirmed the baby died on Jan. 2.

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- A woman in southeastern Thailand is returning to the hospital where her uterus was taken out nearly six years ago - this time for surgery to remove the forceps that doctors left behind. Lamphan Yinsuth, 46, has had stomach pains since her hysterectomy at Chanthaburi province's Prapoklao Hospital in November 1997. X-rays in April revealed that the pains were caused by the 6-by-29 centimeter (2.4-by-11.4 inch) forceps lodged in her abdomen. After filing a complaint to the Medical Council, a national association of doctors, the hospital agreed to compensate Yinsuth 400,000 baht (US$9,520) for the operation...