Investigation underway as woman and preborn baby die at Irish hospital

A young Irish woman and her preborn baby tragically died in Ireland in 2023, after doctors failed to properly diagnose and treat her over the course of six weeks.

Key Takeaways:

• Zoe Tighe had been to the hospital four times, complaining of abdominal pain, over six weeks. Because of her history of UTIs connected to ketamine use, doctors did not give her a pregnancy test.

• Two weeks after her last visit to the hospital, Tighe collapsed and was rushed to the hospital. She was diagnosed with sepsis, and doctors told her she was pregnant, but that her baby had died.

• Shortly after giving birth to her miscarried baby, she suffered cardiac arrest three times and died two days later.

• There is now an investigation into whether Tighe and her baby might still be alive if doctors had tested her for pregnancy on one of her first hospital visits.

• Maternal deaths have been on the rise in the United Kingdom (UK) over the last decade, and continued to rise even after Ireland legalized abortion.

• Preventable maternal deaths are not connected to pro-life laws, but are the result of medical neglect.

The Details:

Twenty-two-year-old Zoe Tighe was complaining of lower abdominal pain when she went to the James Paget Hospital (JPH) on April 24, May 22, June 2, and June 7, and was diagnosed with a recurring urinary tract infection (UTI) due to her prolonged use of ketamine. She did not know she was pregnant, and the hospital failed to give her a pregnancy test. Two weeks after her last visit to the hospital, Tighe collapsed at home on June 24 and was rushed to JPH.

Tighe was diagnosed with sepsis, and an ultrasound revealed she was 14 weeks pregnant, but her baby had died because of the infection, according to The Irish Sun. She was transferred to Norfolk and Norwich Hospital (N&N), but after delivering the baby, she went into cardiac arrest three times and died on June 26. Her cause of death is considered to be sepsis due to E. coli, UTI, and missed miscarriage, with ketamine as a contributing factor.

However, an investigation is looking into whether both Tighe and her baby could have survived if her pregnancy had been detected sooner.

"One of the questions is whether there being no pregnancy testing performed has altered the flow of events at all, and whether not performing the pregnancy test has caused or materially contributed to Zoe's death," a legal representative for Tighe's family said at a hearing. "Pregnancy tests ought to have been performed on several occasions at the JPH."

Rather than testing for pregnancy, doctors assumed the problem was a UTI because of Tighe's misuse of ketamine, an anesthetic that can cause bladder issues if taken long-term. She had been using it since her father died when she was 17, and had frequent UTIs as a result. She suffered so greatly that she had become suicidal.

Her mother, Jane, claimed that because of this, JPH "barely looked at" her. "She was just sent home with very basic painkillers and/or antibiotics for the UTI, which plainly didn't work at all," she said. "I honestly feel that anyone who saw her at James Paget simply didn't look beyond her ketamine issue. They were just not interested in investigating if anything else was wrong. They just kept saying they couldn't do anything for her."

Tighe's mother said she had asked doctors to do scans and to admit Tighe to the hospital, but they didn't.

When Tighe arrived at N&N, the doctor who delivered her miscarried baby said the baby had only died recently and that she didn't understand why JPH hadn't done a routine pregnancy test, which is allegedly standard for women presenting with lower abdominal pain.

Zoom Out:

According to a recent investigation by The Times, maternity deaths in the UK have been rising over the last two decades, despite recommendations given to the National Health Service (NHS) to turn the trend around.

"NHS was issued with 67 separate warnings between 2013 and 2023 to take signs of potentially fatal complications in mothers — known as red flags — seriously," reported The Times. In addition, reviews of the NHS maternity services led to 748 recommendations for improvements.

"Practitioners were also told 13 times to take reports of severe pain seriously, 12 times to act on signs of severe bleeding, ten times to be aware of heart conditions in women, and nine times to ensure maternity staff recognise signs of sepsis," said The Times.

Over that decade, there was a 50% increase in the UK's maternal death rate, from 8.54 deaths per 100,000 pregnancies to 12.80. The increase began and continued as Ireland legalized abortion in 2019. The most common causes of death were blood clots, heart issues, suicide, stroke, sepsis, and severe bleeding.

Theo Clarke, a former MP who led a parliamentary inquiry into these concerns in 2024, called rising maternal deaths "a national scandal."

"NHS maternity services are swamped with recommendations from scores of reports, and still women and their babies are being harmed by a lack of focus and leadership necessary to implement them," she said.

Dr. Clare Tower, an NHS consultant obstetrician, said that hospitals struggled to prioritize problems amid the "sheer volume" of warnings and the lack of funding.

Why It Matters:

Tragic and preventable maternal deaths also happen at an alarming rate in the United States; however, since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, pro-abortion media outlets, especially ProPublica, have blamed pro-life laws for such deaths.

But medical neglect can happen even in places with liberal abortion laws, as Tighe's case shows.

Neglect can happen in any state, and sepsis can happen to anyone — and sometimes, doctors make mistakes that end in tragedy, regardless of abortion laws. Doctors and hospital systems can be at fault in patients' deaths, and often, those deaths are deemed to be preventable.

Collectively, 80% of pregnancy-related deaths in the U.S. are considered “preventable,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Even in states with liberal pro-abortion laws, the majority of pregnancy-related deaths have been deemed "preventable," but that data is often ignored in order to promote a false narrative that such deaths primarily, and perhaps only, occur in pro-life states.

The Bottom Line:

If one staff member caring for Tighe at JPH had considered giving her a pregnancy test or carrying out a scan of her abdomen, she and her baby might be alive today. And that has nothing to do with whether or not abortion is legal.