A woman who died following a late-stage abortion procedure was discharged from the clinic despite vomiting and swaying so much she looked “drunk”, an inquest has heard. Aisha Chithira, 31, travelled to England from Ireland to have an abortion at a Marie Stopes clinic in London, in 2012.

She suffered a tear to her uterus during the “blind” procedure performed under anaesthetic, as a surgeon struggled to dismember the 22-week-old foetus and remove the parts from the woman’s womb.

Afterwards she vomited in a stairwell and complained of feeling unwell to her husband, but was helped into a taxi by staff at the clinic. They had told her she could not stay overnight. One of the nurses denied they had pressured her to leave because they had wanted to go home. Corinne Slingo, representing Marie Stopes, said: “The taxi driver says he saw his passenger walking out of the building. He was quite shocked, she didn’t seem with it at all.

“She looked like she was drunk.” Reading from a statement, she added: “The nurse got her in a hug and she said ‘don’t do that, you will break my bones’.”