IVF mix-up at London clinic

A London hospital is at the centre of a furious row today after two women were implanted with the wrong embryos in IVF operations.

The women were forced to undergo an emergency procedure to have the embryos removed.

Senior staff at the hospital are furious that two men believed responsible for the error have escaped discipline while the respected head of the clinic - who discovered the blunder just in time - has been suspended.

The mix-up happened at the Diana, Princess of Wales Centre for Reproductive Medicine at St George's hospital, Tooting. The women went home believing they were in the first stages of pregnancy for the babies they longed for.

But within hours they were phoned with the news that they were carrying the wrong embryos. An emergency technique was carried out to flush the embryos from their wombs and they were given drugs to ensure there was no risk of pregnancy. The ordeal left both women devastated, traumatised and "emotionally drained". They have been offered counselling by the hospital, which has apologised.

The doctor and an embryologist involved in the blunder - named today as Dr Kamal Ojha and Scott Lamond - were not disciplined and have since been promoted. But the director of the fertility unit, Dr Geeta Nargund - who reportedly spotted the error and called in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) - was suspended and the clinic closed. Colleagues claim Dr Nargund has been "treated like a criminal." They say she arrived at the clinic to find the locks had been changed and she was barred from talking to any of her patients.

Managers at the hospital insist there is no connection between the suspension of Dr Nargund and the embryo mix-up which happened in April. They say the unit, which was not financed by the NHS, closed because of a lack of trained staff and financial losses. They claimed Dr Nargund had been suspended for "non-clinical matters."

Medical director of St George's, Professor Paul Jones, said: "We've carried out a very careful inquiry into what went wrong.

"St George's tries to operate a lowblame culture so that rather than just blaming people for the mistakes, we went into very great detail of how the unit works and came up with a lot of things the unit needs to address.

"We now have procedures in place to ensure that it doesn't happen again."

Both the doctor and the embryologist are believed to have broken established protocols set out by the HFEA which are designed to prevent errors happening.

These state that two embryologists should be present to double check the origin of embryos before implantation and that the doctor should confirm with the patient that her name is on the dish containing the embryo.

Both women were later given further fertility treatment by Dr Nargund and are both currently pregnant.

Colleagues claim that Dr Nargund was being punished for demanding that doctor and embryologist be disciplined.

Professor Stuart Campbell, the consultant who set up the unit, said: "Dr Nargund has been basically treated like a criminal - she was phoned and told her unit had been closed down. When she got back, the locks at the clinic had been changed. She's not allowed to talk to her patients."

He added: It is unethical to forbid a consultant to speak to her patients, some of whom were halfway through IVF cycles. Some of these patients were mid-cycle, which is terribly dangerous. Dr Nargund has a very high reputation. She has been treated shamefully."

Patients were turned away from the clinic nearly three weeks ago. A note explained that the centre had closed due to "staff shortages". Patients later received a letter from St George's Hospital Trust telling them they had been transferred to King's College

Hospital in central London. Dr Ojha is now working in the hospital's obstetrics and gynaecology department and Mr Lamond is in charge of the semen, embryos and eggs belonging to hundreds of fertility patients still stored in the closed unit.

A senior research scientist, who used to work for the fertility unit, said: "It is appalling that someone who has made such a fundamental mistake is now in charge of the embryos and eggs of patients. Nobody knows if they are being properly looked after.

"Nothing has happened to the doctor or embryologist, but Mrs Nargund now finds herself suspended and out in the cold."

Tim Hegley, of the patient group Electronic Fertility Network, said: "How can mistakes like this keep happening? If you can't read a simple label and carry out the right checks, you shouldn't be working."

Neither Dr Nargund, Dr Ojha nor Mr Lamond would comment.