Probe blames failures for UK hospital deaths
An independent report has revealed that major failures at the maternity ward of a British hospital led to the deaths of 11 babies and one mother.
In 2013, the UK health secretary, Jeremy Hunt set up an investigation to examine concerns over what appeared to be a series of unnecessary deaths within what became the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS foundation trust, UHMBT.
A panel of experts collaborated on the Morecambe Bay probe and investigated events at Furness general hospital in Barrow between 1 January 2004 and 30 June 2013.
The report’s author, Bill Kirkup, says: "The findings are stark and catalogue a series of failures at almost every level – from the maternity unit to those responsible for regulating and monitoring the trust."
“It seems [the tragedy] happened because of the cultural difficulties within that particular hospital in the way it was run,” the NHS campaigner, Jose Bell, tells Press TV’s UK Desk.
The report has found the work inside the unit “seriously dysfunctional”, with poor levels of clinical competence, extremely poor working relationships, insufficient recognition of risk, and a determination among midwives to pursue normal childbirth “at any cost”.
Kirkup believes the reaction of staff in the maternity was shaped both by a denial that there was a problem and “a strong group mentality amongst midwives characterized as “the musketeers”.
However, the chair of Socialist Health Association in London, Jose Bell, lays the blame on the government’s austerity policies:
“The real issue is that lots of the hospitals are suffering cuts and difficulties with understaffing. We got a big problem in this country with insufficient number of Midwives, partly because of service cuts.”
HH/PHX
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