‘Worrying’ number of baby deaths at Homerton Maternity Unit revealed
‘Worrying trend’: a high number of baby deaths have been recorded at the Homerton’s maternity unit. Photograph: David Holt
A “worrying” number of baby deaths at Homerton Hospital’s maternity unit has been revealed.
A total of 51 babies were stillborn last year, with nine more dying in the neonatal period (up to 28 days-old) whilst at Homerton Hospital, a Freedom of Information (FoI) request has uncovered.
“This cannot go on,” said healthcare campaigner Christine Papalabropoulos, who submitted the FoI request.
“We need to move fast to make the public aware how unsafe Homerton Maternity Unit is. It is an extremely important local issue,” she said.
Ms Papalabropoulos is also concerned by the trend continuing into this year. By 18 January, the hospital had already recorded seven stillbirths.
“This worries me tremendously,” said Ms Papalabropoulos. “If there have already been at least seven in less than three weeks, that sets a worrying trend for what will happen during the rest of the year.”
The revelation comes weeks after the news that 12 women with links to the Homerton maternity unit had died since 2006.
“It’s not just about the mothers now,” said Ms Papalabropoulos. “Mothers and babies are dying.”
Risks
Stillbirth and neonatal deaths at Homerton exceed the average for England, according to reports published in December 2015 by MBRRACE-UK, (Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries), a research unit run by Oxford University.
Per 1,000 births, there were 4.74 stillbirths at Homerton Hospital compared to 4.26 nationally in 2013, the most recent year for which data is available.
There were also two neonatal deaths in every 1,000 births at Homerton compared to 1.83 nationally. The figures for the Trust are adjusted to take into account the mother’s age, deprivation and other various possible risk factors.
The report gave Homerton a poor ‘amber’ rating in its colour-coded system, with green being the best, followed by yellow, then amber, and red being the worst.
Amber indicates Homerton’s perinatal mortality rate (referring to the period around the time of birth) was “up to 10 per cent higher than the average” for similar hospitals that also have a ‘level 3’ neonatal intensive care unit.
However Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust says its maternity department and paediatric service are “highly regarded for their life-saving care of high risk mothers and babies”.
Dr Martin Kuper, Medical Director of the Trust, said: “Over half the women who use our maternity service are rated as being high risk either because of age, chronic illnesses and conditions such as diabetes and HIV, or obesity – or often several of these risks. These are the main risks leading to stillbirths or birth complications.
“We also have high-risk mothers brought to us from other parts of South East England because of our specialist neonatal intensive care unit, meaning we are dealing with some very sick babies, many of whom are born prematurely.”
This article was update at 12:45pm on Thursday 10 March 2016 with clarification about MBRRACE’s figures and ‘amber’ rating – Ed.
We had our daughter at Homerton Hospital last year, they were amazing, the staff were excellent and looked after our every need and reassured us when needed. They all do an amazing job and should be commended for the work that they carry out, keep it up everyone at Homerton, you rock.
Our daughter was born at 4am on a Sunday at Homerton in December last year, the birth was far from straightforward despite all our preparations. I cannot express how wonderful everyone at Homerton was. I have the utmost respect and gratitude to the doctors and midwifes who kept me and my baby safe.
My son was born in the Homerton 7 years ago. When he was born it was touch and go the pediatric team had to be called. My son was left in the birth canal to long !! One midwife was finishing shifts whilst another started, the one finishing thought it was ok for me to wait for the midwife. Luckily My son survived his ordeal. !!
They were fantastic when my son was born and I have self referred this time to them as they are now not my local and have looked after two difficult pregnancies very well. They have a lot of social and economical, and so medical complications to try to combat in the local area that put babies at grave risk. Keep up the good work Homerton, and thank you. Love and condolences to those who tragically lost their babies.
I would never have another one of my children at Homerton hospital. I had my first son in 2007 and after a horrendous 36 hours of labour i had to have an emergency c section. No one listened to me while i was in labour and they kept switching shifts and leaving me alone. My son survived even though they never told me he swallowed meconium and never put him on obs for it. I then reluctantly had my second child there in 2012 and 19 days later he died of neonatal death. His death was recorded as sids, but did they miss something? I’ll always wonder….
I have had a traumatic birth there that required restorative surgery after.. Doesn’t compare to losing your baby because of them. From my experience, they are careless. The clearest evidence I have if it was to take it further is that the midwife who was with me during the tormenting first night telling me to give formula when I wanted to breastfeed (and by 6am I agreed, I was shattered) summed up those 8hours in which I struggled to bf and she kept saying I should have brought formula, “but we’ll give you some now but you know, that was for very very sick babies” – she summed up that 8hours struggle in my notes with:
“The client requested formula”. No other detail. Nothing.
All these comments from people who had good experiences are irrelevant; people can and do have babies in the back of taxis, you don’t thank the driver for being such a fantastic medic. It’s when things go wrong and get complicated that you want to be in a good hospital. Homerton is the last place you should be. In 2012 my son died in my arms minutes after being born The littany of incompetence and stupidity that led to that would fill a book. The only reason my wife did not die too was that the geniuses shuffled her off to a normal ward in the middle of the night (where I couldn’t stay and where there was no entinox to dull the pain she was in). This was after many hours of being treated as if we were malingerers. A few hours later at 4 in the morning she managed to crawl to the ward desk and beg to be seen by a doctor who actually listened to her. The doctor examined her and told her she was going to die unless the baby was taken out and that he would not survive. A few hours later we had to endure being asked to make a decision over wether we wanted them to try and save the babies life, although he would almost certainly be severely disabled, only to have the consultant come in 20 minutes later (this was the first and only time we ever saw him) and tell us this was nonsense and the baby was doomed because my wifes infection was so bad they would have to pump her full of opiates that would stop the baby breathing. The whole time we were there we saw mid-wife after mid-wife and doctor after doctor. Nine out of ten of them kept looking at their watches and putting off making decisions until the next lot came on shift. They were like dead-eyed factory workers. My mother-in law ,who is a high-up mid-wife in America, has done a lot of voluntary work overseas and said we would have been treated better in a third world country. When my wife first got there she had a blood sample taken. The results did not come back for three days by which time it was too late. They showed her CRP levels to be so high she should have died. A few Other ‘Highlights’ of our treatment at Homerton include ;At one point I had had to go home and when I came back I asked the ward nurse why they were transfering my wife to a normal ward when she was in pain. The nurse, with an attitude said “I looked in on her earlier and she was fast asleep” I replied that she had been passing out with pain, not sleeping. She put her hands on her hips, leaned in to me and repeated “she was fast asleep”. When I relive this in my mind I punch her in the face, but at the time I was in a state of shock and disbelief at how we were being treated. You are vulnerable and expect the professional staff to care for you. What we got was at best indifference and at worst hostility, like we were time-wasters. It was like being in a horror film. We still can’t understand why we were treated like that. Hands-on-hips, don’t care, patronising;these are my impressions of the staff there. Another time my wife was told they couldn’t do the regular checks they were supposed to be doing as “some people are really ill”. The maternity units official response to our complaints admitted no wrong-doing and ended by boasting about how many people they process. The UK has one of the worse records for infant mortality in the developed world. Homerton is bad even by this standard. We later had a healthy boy at UCLH. The difference in treatment was like night and day. We went to a S.A.N.D.S. meeting and heard from a woman who lost a baby at Homerton. She had been left in a room for nearly two days naked and without water They had simply forgotten about her. She said if she was run over in front of Homerton hospital she would demand the ambulance take her someone else. This is how we feel. The place needs shutting down.
We lost our baby there last year in May. The scans were showing something was wrong however they kept telling us it was fine and sending us home. It was our first pregnancy so we didn’t know any different. We lost our baby at 22 weeks of pregnancy. I had called the midwife helpline 3 times when the movements had stopped – no one had picked up either time. I waited for our next scan only to hear the horrific news that still haunts me and my fiancée today that we lost our baby. The experience only became worst when they placed us on the maternity ward to deliver our dead child. For 24 hours in delivery all we heard were other mothers delivering crying healthy babies. Everytime my fiancee left the room he saw fathers holding their children. We had some wonderful midwifes during this nightmare of experience but the night staff midwife left me for so long without any support or water when the Dr came in the next morning I had to be placed on a drip. To make matters worst following this ordeal I had to constantly ask the hospital for the follow – up meeting to find out answers to what happened and what went wrong – which took then 5 months. The whole experience was so poorly managed I really believe that the women that lost their children last year from this poor management and lack of proper care should sue.
I am so sorry for your loss Josephine. We had to keep badgering them for water too. It is really important to stay hydrated but they just couldn’t be bothered to keep on it. they put a canulla in my wifes arm when she was admitted and left it in without using it for three days which started to cause medical problems on it’s own. Total incompetence.
Hi I’m the campaigner who has been trying to expose the poor care at Homerton Maternity. Would you all be prepared to speak to the Press? If I can get you an interview! I’ll give you all time to think before you reply. Sorry to you all for your losses.
Absolutely.
Will come back to you thanks email me guys Christinempapa@gmail.com
Yes. I’ll be in touch
I’m Gary Welch’s wife. Absolutely. They have to be stopped. Our lives are forever changed because of the poor treatment resulting in the loss of our baby. Anything we can do to force them into accountability and possibly save future babies and parents from lifelong heartache is well worth it.
If it is any use I can stand by my words too. I had taken photos of my maternity notes back then as I had intended to complain and someone warned me that the midwife would take them after on month as they are the hospital’s property. Now that my little toddler is more manageable I intend to complain formally too.
Hi All, Is it possible you could contact me thru my email address pls. Thanks
Hi Gary is it possible you could contact thru my Facebook or email address pls.
Thanks
Yes we had amazing care during an emergency C section (potentially very dangerous due to placental abrupt ion). Everyone who cared for us went above and beyond. Our midwife even visited us on her day off. We have so much to thank Homerton for.
I am so sorry for the way u was treated but I can relate to what u have said I hate the homerton Hospital I am due to have a big op and I am very scared to go their and have it done with all the mix up they have made. For 18 months they said I had a fibroid now it has turned out to be a tumour and it is also cancer 🙁 On the 12th of march 2016 I had an appointment at 2 o’clock. I had seen ppl going in long after me and going home so I asked how much longer have I got to wait I have been here 5 hours now I was told nurse’s and doctor’s were on strike today so there is a back log and still 15 ppl in front of me I just could not believe what I was being told. 7 pm and I was still their so I asked them to plz send me a new appointment out in the post and I was going home. I was told not a problem and I do not blame u so off I went home a few days later I got a copy letter that they had sent to my GP now throwing me off their list has I did not turn up for my Appointment wow. it is now june and still no letter from the homerton so yes I understand what u are saying
Theresa, I am so sorry to about your horrifying treatment. If I were you I would see your GP and insist on being referred to another hospital. You don’t have to go to your nearest hospital any more. If your Gp is crap then change them. Unfortunately you have to stand up for yourself and make a fuss or you will get steam-rollered by the system. Do some research on-line and find some kind of patients group to find out the best hospital to go to for your particular ailment. Hospitals are good at some things and bad at others. It is a shame ill people have to do this but that’s how it is now, you have to advocate for yourself. Good luck. Gary.