Maternity, Births & Cover ups
Finally, the report has been published after 20 long years on the inadequacies of maternity services in the Shropshire Area. Those poor parents that tried to seek and gain understanding but faced the hospital legal stony uncaring wall, using the tactics given by lawyers to discredit them rather than what was happening from within the NHS itself. For the 200 or so needless baby deaths and the many left with lifelong issues it is appalling.
I will be the first to say, as I have said many times the NHS on the whole is amazing to treat at point of need our ills and woes, to give lifesaving interventions and to be there in times of crisis. However, when the cracks appear they need to be investigated and done so quickly, not just a bulk pack of Polly filler and whitewash and hope it will go away.
On the news it also mentioned Cumbria as a problem for maternity issues, I would like to say I feel it is more than just these two areas. From our own experience from my eldest being born in 1996 to my daughter in 1998 things were already changing to this natural birth “at all costs” mentality.
Being a man, I know I won’t ever have that full on experience of carrying a child, the changes, the pressures and what it is actually like and when it is your first time it is all very new indeed and you do seek guidance on the whole thing. I always remember the adverts back in the late 70s about “this lady has had 90 babies, this one 60 and this man over 100” showing the professionals that will help “this is her first” but she is in safe hands.
We planned for a natural delivery for our son but my wife began to struggle with breathing and they did a C-Section which went like a dream, very calm, methodical and he arrived with no complications. With a follow up to say there is no reason why you cannot have more children if you wish to.
In 1998, we were expecting our 2nd child, the pregnancy was difficult and due to the issues with our first they said it would be another C-Section to avoid any problems. The day arrived… contractions started and the issues from our first started to happen. However the hospital said they were trying for a natural delivery, even though in the notes it said C-Section – I queried that, of course my comments were not heard and the time dragged on, they said they would make the decision in the evening. That came and then was told they never do C-Sections at night! Really?!? It dragged onto the following day and finally 26 hours later they performed a C-Section rather urgently. In the delivery they also caught the umbilical round my daughters neck and for over 3 minutes she wasn’t breathing. A very worrying time until her gasps of life and noise happened. The damage however had been done and very early on we could tell the difference between our son and our newly arrived daughter.
We did report this to be told very quickly “we were over anxious parents” that’s a really good put down line isn’t it? We persisted and finally had to pay to see a Paed privately who took one look at my daughter to say “you have a problem here” and set up an MRI scan fairly quickly and sure enough she had cerebral palsy caused by oxygen starvation at birth. The paed said this should be investigated when I told her my observations of the 26 hour labour… This we did and like the many parents as mentioned above faced all they did and more and that impenetrable wall of lawyers casting doubt on my observations, saying I was no medic and that never happened! Well it did – end of!
All we wanted, like many from the report, was someone to say “sorry” plain and simple and to learn from it. Not much to ask for really.
At least as I look back on 23 years my daughter is still with us, yes finds life difficult but is doing her best in this strange phenomenon called “human”.