A young mother who allegedly had female genital mutilation performed on her in a London hospital was “let down” by medics, a midwife admitted today.
The woman, identified only as AB, first underwent female circumcision aged six in Somalia and should have been referred to a specialist FGM midwife before she gave birth.
But a community midwife at London’s Whittington Hospital failed to send her down the “FGM pathway”, contrary to the hospital’s policy and she did not receive the specialist care she was entitled to.
It was only when she went into labour in November 2012 that medics at the hospital discovered the FGM.
Immediately after the birth, junior registrar Dhanuson Dharmasena, 32, stitched the young mother back up Southwark Crown Court heard.
Joy Clarke, a midwife specialising in FGM who visited the mother after the birth, was questioned at court about the alleged lack of specialist care.
Barrister Edmund Vickers, representing Hasan Mohamed who is accused of abetting the offence, asked her: “Until the day of delivery she hadn’t had any support at all by the FGM specialist had she? In that respect, she had been let down hadn’t she?”
Ms Clarke replied: “You could say that, yes.”
Jurors earlier heard that community midwife Jane Padmore-Wood saw the woman in May 2012 and asked her if she had any “stitches down below” - referring to FGM.
The woman replied; “It’s fine, it’s opened” - alluding to an operation she had the previous year to undo the FGM.
Ms Padmore-Wood told the court she thought this meant AB did not need specialist care, but conceded there had been “missed opportunities” in her care.
It appears the FGM re-sealed when it was healing and was present during childbirth, the court heard.
Ms Clarke visited the woman in December and January immediately following the birth to explain that FGM is dangerous and against the law.
She denied she said Dharmasena had broken the law by re-doing the FGM because “he’s foreign and he doesn’t know the rule”.
Ms Clarke told the court: “I did not say anything of the kind.”
The midwife said she explained the law to AB but did not take a Somalian interpreter to translate.
Ms Clarke said she had been told AB “could understand a little bit” and she was “not aware” if an interpreter was required for prenatal visits.
She added: “I felt that if I used simple language with description she would understand the information I was trying to relay to her.”
Ms Clarke conceded it would have been “best practice” to have an interpreter, but said she thought she was being understood.
Dharmasena denies one count of female genital mutilation.
Linked to this, Mohamed, 41, is facing one count of abetting Dharmasena in committing the offence.
He faces an alternative count of encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence. He denies both counts.
The trial continues.