A 22-year-old beautician and her unborn baby died after hospital staff failed to perform a pregnancy test during four separate visits, an inquest has heard. Zoe Tighe, from Lowestoft, Suffolk, attended the emergency department at James Paget University Hospital (JPH) in Gorleston, Norfolk, on four occasions over six weeks in 2023, complaining of lower abdominal pain. On each visit, medics treated her for a recurring urinary tract infection without checking if she was pregnant.
Miss Tighe collapsed at home on June 24 and was taken back to JPH, where she was diagnosed with sepsis. A scan revealed she was 14 weeks pregnant, but the baby had already died due to the infection. She was transferred to Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, where she suffered three cardiac arrests and died shortly after giving birth to the miscarried baby.
Norfolk Coroner's Court heard that questions remain over whether both lives could have been saved if the pregnancy had been detected earlier. A legal representative for Miss Tighe's family said: '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. Pregnancy tests ought to have been performed on several occasions at the JPH.'
Miss Tighe's mother, Jane Tighe, told the hearing that her daughter had been 'unwell for some time' due to ketamine misuse, which began at age 17 following her father's death. The drug had caused bladder fibrosis, known as 'ketamine bladder', leading to frequent UTIs. Mrs Tighe said she felt doctors 'didn't look beyond her ketamine issue' and were 'not interested in investigating if anything else was wrong'. She added: 'I asked for scans and begged for her to be admitted as she was in so much pain and so frail, but I was frankly ignored.'
The inquest continues.
