The British government apologized on Wednesday after learning the results of an investigation commissioned by the Ministry of Health into a maternity hospital after a group of families reported mistreatment and irregularities in medical procedures after the deaths of their babies. According to the report, heThe death of some 200 babies during the last two decades in a hospital in the North West of England could have been prevented if “they had received better care at birth.
The document, which was commissioned in 2017, analyzed 1,592 cases registered in the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital maternity hospital and concluded that the stubborn refusal to perform caesarean sections and lack of proper care caused the preventable deaths of dozens of newborns.
The investigation assessed that “201 babies could have lived if the hospital had provided better care” and that “nine mothers also lost their lives due to poor carewhile others were forced to give birth naturally when they should have been offered a caesarean section.”
“To all the families who have suffered so much, I am sorry,” British Health Minister Sajid Javid told Parliament today.
The official maintained that the report, which revealed the magnitude of a scandal that spans two decades, “makes it clear that they were victims of a service that was there to help them.”
serious complaints
The 250-page work includes cases of newborns with fractured skulls, broken bones, and brain problems due to lack of oxygen suffered at the time of birth.
“Significant or important” flaws were also found in a quarter of the 498 cases of deceased babies that were studied. In 40 percent of the cases, no internal investigation into the cause of death was carried out.
MP Jeremy Hunt, who commissioned the report in 2017, said the The investigation’s conclusions were “worse” than he could have imagined.
For her part, Donna Ockenden, in charge of directing the investigation, stated that the hospital “did not investigate (the cases), did not learn (from its mistakes), did not improve.”
The mothers who searched for answers
The first to make the irregularities reported in maternity visible were two mothers who lost their babies. Rhiannon Davies gave birth to her daughter Kate in 2009, the girl died within hours. According to the woman’s complaint, her doubts about the little movement she felt in the last weeks of pregnancy were ignored at the clinic. Nor did anyone act in time when the newborn she had trouble breathing.
It was only in 2016 when the institution recognized that the death of the baby could have been avoided.
That same year, Kayleigh Griffiths’ baby died at just 31 hours old. A medical examiner ruled that the newborn’s death was also preventable. Griffiths contacted Davies and together they began tracking other similar cases.
After having collected the data of 23 other similar cases, they requested a meeting with the then secretary of health, Jeremy Hunt. The official commissioned the investigation in May 2017.