Death of woman who travelled to UK for abortion 'deeply sad'
A coroner in London has described as catastrophic and deeply sad the events that led to the death of a woman who had travelled to the UK from Ireland for an abortion in 2012.
Aisha Chithira, 31, was originally from Malawi but had been living in Ireland since 2009. Acting Senior Coroner for West London Dr Sean Cummings said Ms Chithira had what he described as a "significant gynaecological history", having had stillborn twins at 30 weeks in 2008, as well as a miscarriage and the development of fibroids.
Ms Chithira became pregnant again in autumn 2011. Her husband Ryan Kapengule gave evidence to the inquest that Ms Chithira had a series of meetings at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin in order to negotiate how best to manage her pregnancy against the backdrop of this history.
She began to develop stomach pains and the couple decided a termination would be appropriate.
They initially thought that would be possible in Ireland but then realised it would not.
Efforts were made to find a clinic in the UK.
They needed to obtain a visa, which Ms Chithira's husband said took about a month.
At that point, Ms Chithira was approaching 20 weeks' gestation and a number of clinics in the UK would not accept her.
Mr Kapengule had told the inquest that in his culture termination was not an easily accepted procedure and so his wife kept the situation a secret and travelled alone. He stayed in Ireland to look after the couple's daughter, who was about 18 months old at the time. His wife was admitted on 21 January 2012 to the Marie Stopes Clinic in Ealing for an abortion.
Following the procedure, she became ill and was found collapsed later that night in a taxi she had taken to a relative's house. Dr Cummings ruled that Ms Chithira died as a result of a significant intra-abdominal bleed.
He said her death resulted from a recognised complication of the procedure resulting in sometimes subtle and atypical symptoms, which were not appreciated as sinister at the time.