A Melbourne woman who died shortly after a surgical abortion underwent the procedure for financial reasons, a spokesperson for her family has said.
Mum-of-two Harjit Kaur attended the Hampton Park Women’s Health Clinic on January 12 to have a surgical termination.
According to the 30-year-old’s family, soon after the operation concluded, her heart stopped beating and she could not be revived.
Three doctors – clinic director, Dr Michelle Kenney; the anaesthetist from Ms Kaur’s surgery, Dr Tony Chow; and gynaecologist, Dr Rudolph Lopes – have now been suspended from practising medicine anywhere in Australia by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA), pending an investigation.
News.com.au is not suggesting that Dr Chow, Dr Kenney, Dr Lopes or any other staff at Hampton Park Women’s Health Clinic were responsible for Ms Kaur’s death. The cause is still under investigation by the Coroner.
Until this is determined, family spokesperson Suresh Rajan, speaking to news.com.au on behalf of Ms Kaur’s husband Sukhjinder Singh, said “no closure can be had”.
“The family is struggling. Recently (her) daughter (the elder child) had her birthday. Her questions were around when mum was coming to cut her cake,” Mr Rajan said.
“The family celebrated their first Mother’s Day without Harjit. It is extremely difficult. Every day, reminders come up and the loss is brought to mind again.”
Ms Kaur had just started a new job, in a senior IT position at Nike, when she and Mr Singh learned of the pregnancy, Mr Rajan explained.
The couple’s two children are both under the age of five, and they’d also “just put an offer on a house, and that had been accepted”.
“So, with that confluence of events, they had made the decision to abort (the pregnancy) to concentrate on career, home ownership and their other two children,” Mr Rajan said.
For many Australians, ANU demographer and social researcher Dr Liz Allen told news.com.au, “the barriers to having a child are now insurmountable” in the face of our ongoing cost-of-living crisis. On average, parents spend $12,823 per child each year.
“Housing affordability, gender inequality, financial insecurity, and climate change make for an unstable and uncertain future,” Dr Allen explained.
It’s no surprise, then, that the nation’s fertility rate is at its lowest in history – 1.6 births per woman – dropping almost 20 per cent since the 2008 global financial crisis.
The decline in the average number of children per woman is also a reflection, Dr Allen said, of “increased participation of women in education and paid employment”.
“Taking time out of the workforce to have children is costly and can adversely impact family income for years after welcoming a newborn,” she said.
“Career disruption and time out of the workforce to have children can have enormous impacts on mothers.”
Family has had to deal with ‘bureaucratic quagmire’
Ms Kaur was initially offered a medical abortion, where taking a pill brings on bleeding. After being concerned about the side effects, however, she opted instead for the surgical procedure.
Manager of Women’s Health Victoria service, 1800 My Options, Carolyn Mogharbel, stressed that first-trimester abortions are “absolutely considered safe and low-risk when performed by a trained medical professional”.
“Like all medical procedures there is risk, but major complications are rare,” Ms Mogharbel told news.com.au.
The “bureaucratic quagmire” Ms Kaur’s family has been forced to deal with in the ensuing months, Mr Rajan said, has only exacerbated their loss.
“We desperately want to see a determination of the cause of death,” he said, adding that without it, the family is unable to get Probate declared or letters of administration “so that we can access her entitlements to be able to pay for the house”.
The family is equally as desperate, Mr Rajan said, to “ensure no one else has to deal with this fate”.
“If that requires (the) permanent suspension of the medical professionals responsible, then so be it,” Mr Rajan said.
“We do not want this to happen to anyone else. We will work with whoever we need to in order to achieve this. We would also like the (Victorian) Government to consider calling for an inquest into the death of Harjit. We hope that this is undertaken as a matter of urgency.”
Anaesthetist’s practice breach ‘completely inappropriate’
A clearer picture of the Hampton Park clinic has emerged as AHPRA’s investigation continues. While the regulator cannot comment on why Dr Chow and Dr Kenney were suspended in the past month (or Dr Lopes, who was stood down earlier this year), public records suggest Dr Chow was not allowed to be working at the clinic on the day Ms Kaur died.
He had restrictions on his registration, and was only permitted to work at Knox Private Hospital, according to AHPRA’s register. If he was breaching these restrictions to administer Ms Kaur’s sedative at Hampton Park, Mr Rajan said, it would be “completely inappropriate”.
Dr Lopes also had a number of restrictions on him – from May 2022 until a few weeks before Ms Kaur’s procedure, the gynaecologist was only allowed to practise under the supervision of a Medical Board of Australia-approved person.
Mr Rajan said Ms Kaur’s family is “happy” with the actions undertaken by AHPRA so far.
But, “we hope that in future when there are suspensions or barring orders or restrictions on medical professionals, that AHPRA has an audit or examination process that ensures that these orders are fully implemented”, he said.
“There is a need for AHPRA or other agencies to ensure that doctors and nurses are abiding by the rules of their profession and regulator.”
Access to affordable abortions ‘saves lives’
It’s imperative, Ms Mogharbel said, that abortion care be affordable – and available in public hospitals – in the same way the likes of cardiac, maternity and pediatric care are.
Demand in Victoria for both medical and surgical procedures already outstrips available services. Of the more than 600 calls 1800 My Options (the state’s phoneline and online service for contraception, abortion and sexual health) receives each month, Ms Mogharbel estimates 85 per cent are from people seeking information and services for pregnancy termination.
“Even if somebody has an abortion provider in their local area, that doesn’t mean it’s accessible to them if they can’t pay for the service,” she said.
“Callers talk to us about going without many necessities so they can pay for abortions and their associated costs such as ultrasounds, GP appointments for referrals, transport, and childcare. Thirty-five per cent of (our) callers … can’t actually afford the sexual and reproductive healthcare that they need.”
An inability to access an abortion service, Ms Mogharbel added, can have “extensive impacts” on a woman’s health, earning capacity, education, and general wellbeing – and that of her family and community.
“Abortion access saves lives. It is a basic healthcare need that allows people to control their fertility and choose what to do with their own body,” she said.
“Making abortion accessible means that people can make a decision to continue or end a pregnancy outside of the constraints of the immediate financial stresses that abortion costs can cause.”