Campaign over abortion doctor

Andrew Gbinigie is still on the medical register

Women who claim to have suffered at the hands of a doctor who pulled out part of a patient's bowel during a botched abortion are joining forces to try to have him struck off.

About a dozen women met on Tuesday evening to discuss how they were affected when they were patients of Andrew Gbinigie.

The consultant gynaecologist and obstetrician was found guilty of serious professional misconduct by the General Medical Council (GMC) last month, but escaped a ban from practising medicine.

A GMC hearing heard how Mr Gbinigie left a patient with life-threatening internal injuries but ruled that he could carry out abortions if he abided by a series of conditions for three years.

We've got 25 names from just the West Midlands Campaigner, Nicola Evans

Nicola Evans, who had a child after being sterilised by Mr Gbinigie, said: "The amount of phone calls from women who phoned up upset, crying over the phone, it's just absolutely amazing.

"We've got 25 names from the West Midlands."

The GMC ruled Mr Gbinigie, of Barnt Green, Worcestershire, performed an abortion on a 20-week pregnant woman in November 2000 that was beyond his clinical competence.

During the abortion at Birmingham's private Calthorpe Clinic, Mr Gbinigie ruptured the patient's uterus wall and removed her right ovary and fallopian tube.

It was only after he pulled out a piece of her bowel that he realised something was wrong and called for help from senior staff.

The woman's life was saved after three consultants at the Birmingham Women's Hospital carried out a five-hour emergency operation during which her right kidney had to be removed.