A hospital has apologised to a heartbroken woman who was mistakenly told she had a chronic liver condition just days after suffering a miscarriage.

Chelsie Wright, from Chatham, was left “confused and frightened” after medics at Medway Maritime Hospital mistakenly placed hepatitis on her medical records.

The health trust responsible says it admitted its mistake straight away, “sincerely apologised”, and explained the steps it is taking to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

Chelsie, 27, had first found out she had fallen pregnant at the end of August.

She told KentOnline: “It was a high risk pregnancy because I have a lot of health issues.

“I went to the early pregnancy unit straight away and I had lots of scans at the hospital. They said the baby was growing and that everything was good.”

During scans on September 3 and September 17, Chelsie says she was told the baby was “growing beautifully”, but sadly on September 25 she was informed her child had stopped growing.

It was undeniably devastating news which she believes could have been more sympathetically delivered.

She added: “When they told me a woman came in and said ‘you’ve lost it’ and then walked out like it was nothing.

“I booked in the next day for another opinion and was told there were two babies – but they wanted to take me in for surgery straight away.

“I paid for a private scan on the same day instead to make sure there wasn’t still an alive baby.

“That scan confirmed there hadn’t been two and that the baby had died earlier than what I’d thought.

“The reason they thought there had been two was because the baby had already started to break apart.

“But I wasn’t happy to have the surgery there and then not knowing whether there were two babies still there and whether one was still alive.”

A week later, on October 2, she went in for her dilation and curettage (D&C) surgery, and was discharged just 45 minutes later.

Chelsie has suffered three previous losses and is high risk as she has epilepsy and is being tested for sticky blood syndrome.

But seeing the hepatitis, a condition used to describe inflammation of the liver tissue, on her records was completely unexpected.

Chelsie explained: “I was discharged from theatre as they said there was no room on the ward.

“I had to walk around still not 100% with it. When I got home and started functioning a bit better I saw my discharge forms which said chronic hepatitis on it so I was a bit confused and frightened.

“I booked a doctor’s appointment because I was scared I had a condition I wasn’t aware of.

“I also contacted PALS to try and get hold of the person who wrote that on my discharge forms but I wasn’t hearing anything back”.

Around three days later, the hospital contacted Chelsie to say chronic hepatitis had accidentally been put on her form.

It apologised and amended her hospital records immediately.

“Obviously I wasn’t happy,” she added. “It’s a serious thing to put something like that on someone’s health record if it’s not true.

“It was just one thing after another.

“I had to carry that dead baby inside of me for a week and if it died earlier it could have been much longer than that. It wasn’t a nice procedure to go through.

“I just don’t want this to happen to anyone else, that hospital really failed me.”

Chelsie received a letter from her miscarriage consultant on October 15 apologising for the mistake.

I just don’t want this to happen to anyone else, that hospital really failed me

A written communication from the hospital to Chelsie and her GP, seen by KentOnline, reads: “Unfortunately you had to contact our PALS Department due to an error on the discharge summary which has now been corrected.

"I have apologised again for the mistake and we have talked today about an action plan that I have put in place to avoid mistakes like this in the future."

Sarah Vaux, interim chief nursing officer for Medway NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We offer our deepest condolences to Miss Wright for the devastating loss of her baby and the distress she is experiencing.

“Our early pregnancy bereavement service is available, should Miss Wright like to take up this offer of further support.

“We are sorry for the error made on Miss Wright’s discharge notes and understand the unnecessary worry this would have caused during this very difficult time.

“As soon as we were made aware of this, we contacted Miss Wright to sincerely apologise, help answer her questions, and explain the actions we have taken to correct her discharge notes and to make sure this does not happen again.”

In the UK, it is estimated that one in four pregnancies ends in the loss of a baby.

Despite that figure, it's still something that many find difficult to talk about and families can face a wall of silence.

Abigail's footsteps is a charity that supports families at the most difficult time, and provides training to health care professionals.

Last month the charity launched its second series of the podcast, A Journey with Abigail’s Footsteps, where parents shared their own experiences to mark this year’s Baby Loss Awareness Week.

A Journey with Abigail’s Footsteps is an IM Listening production.