"I don't want another lady in my place."
A mother-to-be had a miscarriage after quarantine hotel staff did not let her go to hospital.
Amna Bibi had arrived from Pakistan 34 weeks pregnant on June 10, 2021, with her husband and other family members.
She and her family quarantined at the O2 Intercontinental hotel in Greenwich.
Amna had an ultrasound scan booked for June 15 at 9 am, but she claims the paramedic at the hotel refused to let her go.
The staff member allegedly said she was only permitted one hospital trip under the rules, and she has already been twice.
On June 18, Amna tragically miscarried her baby girl, whom she named Hafsa.
She stated that the “trauma and tragedy” of losing her baby “will stay with me until I am living”.
Amna said: “I want under the Government guidelines for every patient, not only pregnant women, to make it better for them.
“I don’t want another lady in my place.
“If God gave me another life, it would be fighting for other women not to be in my place.”
Amna says she was suffering from swelling, pain and breathlessness throughout her stay and had been to hospital for check-ups.
Paramedics, employed by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), then stopped her from going to hospital for a vital ultrasound scan and again later when she fell in her hotel room.
After she was denied a trip to hospital, Amna ran a bath to ease her swelling.
However, she slipped twice and hurt herself.
Amna told Yorkshire Live: “I was in so much pain I could barely walk.”
She said the hotel paramedic assessed her but said she could not go to hospital. She was offered painkillers instead.
On June 18, 2021, she began to feel painful contractions and was sweating heavily. Amna later passed out in her husband’s arms before she started bleeding.
She said: “I got so scared.”
Amna waited 45 minutes before hotel staff provided her with a wheelchair to take her to hospital.
“I was in such a state, I was crying, and I asked them if my husband could come with me – they said, ‘No, sorry, your partner cannot go with you’.
“The hotel security went with me.”
When she got to hospital, doctors searched for the baby’s heartbeat.
Amna continued: “They were searching, but they couldn’t find my baby’s heartbeat.
“They said to me that they were very sorry, but I had lost the baby.”
Amna then had an emergency C-section. She later had a blood transfusion and was transferred to an intensive care unit on a ventilator, where she stayed for four days.
She said: “I was this close to dying.
“I was in such a big shock. For so many days, I was trying to get into hospital, and they wouldn’t let me into hospital.
“I was not allowed to get my scan done.
“The doctor said that if I had had the scan done, the baby would have been alive today.”
A DHSC spokesperson said:
“We recognise the impact restrictions have had on many people.
“The quarantine measures we have in place are minimising the risk of variants coming into the UK and, in turn, safeguarding the hard-won progress of our vaccination programme.
“All decisions for quarantine exemptions are carefully considered on a case-by-case basis, and we always balance the needs of the person applying with our top priority of ensuring the general public are as protected as possible.
“We are making every effort to ensure everyone’s needs are met, and we expect hotels to provide onsite medical assessments by fully qualified healthcare professionals to ensure guests receive any treatment they need.”
A spokesperson for IHG Hotels and Resorts said:
“The safety of our guests is always our highest priority.
“We are unable to comment on any matter relating to our guests due to confidentiality reasons, and the approach to and management of managed quarantine hotel facilities is a matter for the DHSC.”