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Hospital blamed for baby deaths
A series of errors that led to the death of a baby at a top London hospital had also occurred four years earlier, according to a secret report seen by Evening Standard.
- Evening Standard
- Published: 00:00 June 14, 2007
London: A series of errors that led to the death of a baby at a top London hospital had also occurred four years earlier, according to a secret report seen by Evening Standard.
An inquest has ruled that staff at the Royal Free Hospital were guilty of neglect following a string of blunders during the 10-hour delivery of Riley Croft. He was starved of oxygen and died 35 minutes after he was born in March 2005.
His parents, Iain Croft and Heather Paterson from Crouch End, both BBC journalists, now plan to sue the Royal Free after an inquiry concluded "the care given up to the point of delivery was seriously deficient".
A doctor admitted writing the wrong prescription for prostin, a drug used to induce the baby. A midwife subsequently gave Paterson, now 43, twice the recommended dose.
Two midwives admitted making basic mistakes in observation and assessment of the baby's heart rate, while notes were not kept for substantial periods of the delivery.
Now, Standard has seen a report into a stillbirth in September 2001 in which staff were heavily criticised for similar blunders.
The document, marked private and confidential, shows the mother was also given too strong a dose of prostin; notes were not taken for several hours during delivery; and heart rates were not monitored.
The baby is not named. The hospital's internal report concludes: "In the case of Mrs X, the standard of care was suboptimal, specifically relating to fetal monitoring, and this stillbirth could have been potentially preventable."
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