Midwife cautioned for leaving baby in cupboard

Yvonne Musonda-Malata, 35, was responsible for caring for the newborn girl while her sick mother slept, a disciplinary panel heard.

But she “failed to provide appropriate clinical care” to the baby while working on a night shift at Queen’s Hospital in Romford, Essex, in 2011, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) found.

The NMC disciplinary panel imposed the sanction after ruling that Ms Musonda-Malata’s fitness to practise was impaired.

The panel was told that she tended to the baby, known as Baby A, in a cot by the midwives station before moving it into a large stationery cupboard after it became unsettled.

The incident, which occurred on April 18, 2011, was reported by Alex Curtis, a nursery nurse at the hospital who found the baby in the cupboard at about 6.30am.

She told the tribunal: “If, as a nursery nurse, I took responsibility for a parent’s baby, I would never leave it alone. If I needed to go off and do something, I would ask another nurse to look after the baby.”

Ms Musonda-Malata protested her innocence throughout proceedings. “I did not put the baby in the cupboard at all. At all. I did not,” she told the panel.