Faulty diagnosis forces abortion

A woman has been forced to have an abortion after a lab-test blunder wrongly diagnosed her with drug-resistant tuberculosis.

The mistake meant the woman, who recently emigrated to New Zealand, had to undergo "very toxic" treatment requiring her to have a medically induced abortion. The termination of her pregnancy was later found to have been unnecessary.

Immigrant rights groups and legal experts have condemned her treatment. They say she could be entitled to hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation for medical misadventure.

Auckland laboratory LabPlus, part of Auckland District Health Board, has been slated by an independent review, which found that staff were at risk from infection and that lab-test samples were in danger of cross-contamination because of unsafe work practices.

The health board has apologised to the woman and says it fully accepts that failings resulted in "serious consequences" for her and her family - though no financial compensation has been paid.

The Dominion Post fought for four months through the Office of the Ombudsman to have the health board's report into the 2007 sentinel event made public, after initial information requests were declined.

Though heavily abridged, it reveals a series of mistakes which led to the misdiagnosis and subsequent abortion, despite a senior public health officer having raised questions earlier about the test result's validity.

Though the health board initially indicated the woman had been denied residency and deported, it is now understood she is living permanently in New Zealand with Kiwi residency.

Both the board and the Immigration Service still refuse to reveal information about her identity or current whereabouts.

Documents issued by the Labour Department show she arrived in New Zealand in February 2006 on a flight from Hong Kong and was granted a work permit.

Immigration officials were notified of her supposed condition on May 3 last year by the health board after tests required by an Immigration Service medical assessor. These would have included a full medical and a chest X-ray.

The woman was diagnosed with extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis by staff at LabPlus's microbiology department in April last year. The apparent condition needed "very toxic treatment", requiring termination of her pregnancy. She was then discharged and she returned to her home country.

The diagnosis was later found to have arisen from a lab blunder resulting from cross-contamination of test samples - sparking a critical external review and raft of procedural changes.

LabPlus is the health board's accredited medical laboratory and main pathology service provider for Auckland City and its hospitals. It also provides national lab-testing services for other health boards, processing about three million specihmens a year.

The independent review was commissioned in January after the mistaken diagnosis was identified last September.

"Bewildered" reviewers found the lab's mycobacteria section - which processes 5000 TB-related specimens a year - had numerous deficiencies which needed dealing with "as a matter of urgency".

Health board chief medical officer David Sage said the board fully accepted there had been failings.

"This is a very distressing case and the Auckland District Health Board has offered our deepest apologies to the family concerned.

"We now have a responsibility to implement the appropriate systems and process changes to ensure we are doing everything we can to stop an incident like this happening in the future."