Health Minister Joseph Cassar told Parliament yesterday that the Hospital Activity Analysis at Mater Dei Hospital showed that between January 2008 and October 2010 there were 80 cases of women discharged with a diagnosis of threatened abortion.
Answering a question by Jean Pierre Farrugia (PL), Dr Cassar said the number was probably different to the real number of cases due to the fact that women were normally taken to hospital following the issue of blood, caused by a variety of causes, which threatened abortion or miscarriage.
After the patient was investigated, the diagnosis may change from threatened abortion to miscarriage or inevitable abortion. Some women might not be included in the statistics if they were not hospital inpatients.
Information gathered from the Obstetrics Ward 2 and the Bereavement Midwife at the Gynaecology and Obstetrics Unit showed that there were 226 women with a diagnosis of miscarriage from January to December last year. There were 391 cases in 2008 and 392 in 2009.