Hospital in apology over maternity unit deaths

Channel 4 News reported that Queen’s Hospital in Romford is facing legal action by 12 women or their families over the care they received in the maternity unit.

The programme’s website said that a report into the death of Violet Stephens in April after she had been admitted with pre-eclampsia, a potentially life-threatening condition in pregnant women, had uncovered a “succession of failures” in her care.

The serious untoward incident report found there was a failure to administer a blood transfusion as planned, a delay in making the decision to deliver her baby, and when she was found unresponsive with gasping breath, it took 25 minutes for a cardiac arrest call to be made, Channel 4 News said.

The 12 women or their families taking legal action against the Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust include the husband of Tebussum Ali, known as Sareena, who died along with her newborn baby in January this year, it added.

The report into those deaths said hospital staff failed to spot a ruptured womb, and they then tried to resuscitate her with a disconnected oxygen mask, it said.

The trust’s chief executive Averil Dongworth said last night: “I am so sorry that both Violet Stephens and Sareena Ali did not receive the standard of care they were entitled to expect.”