A WOMAN crouches in the corner of a hospital emergency room.

Tear-stained and bleeding, every second that passes sends a stab of fear through her racing heart.

She clutches her swelling belly and sobs, wondering if her baby will be saved.

Is it alive, or is it already dead is the question that plagues her over the long hours spent waiting in terror.

It is there in the waiting room eight hours later that she finally learns the truth and is sternly ordered to “stop crying.”

As amazing as it may seem, this is no isolated incident.

It is an experience reported by many women who have suffered through a miscarriage in Victoria.

East Keilor resident Jennifer Duke has endured four devastating miscarriages and still wears the scars of her traumatic experiences.

In one particularly horrifying memory, Jennifer recalls losing her baby in the toilet of a hospital waiting room.

“I was absolutely hysterical and the nurse just came and flushed it away.

“It was so clinical and insensitive and it just made me feel so horrible.

“I hope no other woman ever has to go through an experience like that.”

On another occasion, Jennifer was forced to wait five days to have her dead foetus removed because her doctor was on holiday.

When she finally had the operation, she was met with little sympathy from hospital staff.

“I was lying in my hospital bed crying and a nurse came and told me off.

“She told me I shouldn’t be crying, that I should just buck up, like it wasn’t a big deal.

“But it was a big deal for me.”

While horror stories like these often go unnoticed, staff at Sunshine Hospital are determined to break the cycle of torment for women like Jennifer.

In an Australian first, nurses and doctors at the hospital have written and produced a short film to teach medical staff how to sensitively treat women who are going through a miscarriage.

Western Health nurse practitioner Debora Webster-Bain was inspired to create the film after hearing the heart-wrenching stories of women who had been traumatised by their experiences.

“I spoke to women who had waited six to eight hours in an emergency room not knowing what was going on with their babies. “They had to wait in line like everyone else because a miscarriage was not considered to be an emergency,” Ms Webster-Bain said.

With the support of her colleagues, Ms Webster-Bain set up a designated space in the hospital’s emergency department specifically catering to women who are experiencing a miscarriage.

The concept was so successful, Ms Webster-Bain began toying with the idea of sharing her ideas with other health professionals.

And so the film “Precious Ten” was born.

Co-written with colleagues Dr Sean Fabri, and nurse Gillian Fawcett, the educational DVD was released last week and will be sold to hospitals and health centres Australia wide.