By A nurse working for the National Health Service in the United Kingdom is out of a job after he supplied misoprostol tablets to a friend, who then gave them to another man, who force-fed them to his pregnant partner in hopes of triggering a miscarriage.
The nurse gave out the pills after the official cutoff window for abortions in the U.K., thus violating national law. And now he’s no longer able to practice as a nurse.
Improper Conduct
Robinraj Christy, 30, was working as an independent nurse prescriber at Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust when he supplied the abortion pills to his friend from university, Kasam Rahman, who then gave them to the dad-to-be, Isaac Lyndsay.
Records show Lyndsay’s partner was “force-fed” the medication in 2018 by Lyndsay with the intention of “terminating her pregnancy against her will.”
Abortions in the U.K. can only be performed up until 24 weeks of gestation.
According to the NHS, “In very limited circumstances an abortion can take place after 24 weeks – for example, if there’s a risk to life or there are problems with the baby’s development.”
The baby was already 28 weeks at the time. The medication failed to trigger a miscarriage, and the child was born nine weeks premature and considered critically ill.
Investigators linked Christy to the crime through a series of phone communications. He was then arrested, but has since denied any involvement.
In 2019, he was jailed for three years for conspiring to administer poison.
During the trial, Justice Andrew Baker said, “You have been found out by the events of this case to lack not just thinking skills or an ability to appreciate the seriousness of what was happening, but a certain lack of moral compass or fibre that is quite shocking to find in a healthcare professional.”
“The tenor and content of your telephone calls on both days were entirely plain to hear,” he added.
“You unhesitatingly joined in [the mum’s partner’s] plan, offering both prompted and sometimes unprompted medical information and advice, and also tactical views, knowing that he was looking to bring about the illegal abortion of a viable fetus. You were actively ensuring he worked through all the consequences to help him make sure that, if he went ahead, he had both maximum chances of success and maximum chances of not being caught.”
As for the other culprits, Lyndsay received a seven-year prison sentence for his involvement in the crime, while Rahman was sentenced to three years in prison for assisting with a botched abortion attempt.
Struck Off from Nursing
As a final step, a disciplinary panel from the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) recently removed Christy from its registry of providers.
The panel heard remarks from investigators. “Christy’s conduct in advising a third party how to give a woman a noxious substance that would induce an abortion or miscarriage contributed to a member of public and her unborn child experiencing significant harm,” they said.
“[Christy] contributed to bringing about this harm by using his professional knowledge to advise a third party on how to bring about a miscarriage or abortion and how to exacerbate the effects of the substance administered,” the panel added.
The tribunal decided to give Christy the boot because his ability to practice medicine has been impaired. They also found that his actions went against “all that nursing stands for.”
The panel also said that Christy had “abused his knowledge and experience” as a nurse, to give “medical information and advice” to assist criminal conduct. It was also suggested that his actions had “brought the nursing profession into disrepute.”
Panel chair Florence Mitchell added, “The panel considered Mr. Christy’s behavior to be demonstrative of a deep-seated attitudinal problem.”
“The panel found that Mr. Christy had offered no insight, remorse or remediation in respect of his conduct, despite having a substantial amount of time to reflect on these incidents.”
