Hospital sorry for 'stealing' women's babies

ROYAL Women's Hospital has apologised for taking children from mothers, after a report revealed its role in the policy.

Of the 5000 babies born to single women at the hospital from 1945 to 1975, around a quarter were adopted out, a study by Australian Catholic University's Shurlee Swain found.

Hospital chief executive Dale Fisher said she hoped the revelations, commissioned by the hospital, would be accepted as evidence of its regret over the devastation caused to mothers and adoptees.

Hospital throws away newborn by mistake

A hospital in South China's Guangdong province hs mistakenly diagnosed a premature baby as stillborn and threw him away.

The issue has stoked public anger and stirred a new round of debate regarding the country's hospital management system.

Liu Dongmei, 22, gave birth to a baby boy in the 32nd week of her pregnancy with the help of two nurses at Nanhai Red Cross Hospital in Foshan Oct 26.

The baby was believed to be not breathing or crying and the skin had turned purple.

Teenage Mother Tries to Suffocate her Baby – Caught on Hospital Surveillance – Video

This is the shocking moment a teenage mother attempts to smother her baby in a hospital.

Hidden video cameras caught 18-year-old Shantaniqua Scott place a blanket over her four-month-old son’s mouth. Moments later she clamps her hand over his face and mouth as the newborn baby kicks and struggles for life as his air supply is cut off.

SEE THE VIDEO HERE – WARNING – GRAPHIC

By the time the teenage single mother removes her hand her son Raymond’s body appears limp. Seconds later, with alarms going off indicating the baby had stopped breathing, doctors and nurses rush in to resuscitate him.

The shocking footage was played to a shocked courtroom in Texas where Scott is on trial for attempting to kill her newborn son. Jurors sat in rapt silence as the video tape recorded at the Cook Children’s Medical Centre in July 2010 was played in a Fort Worth courtroom.

They had heard how Scott’s son had been taken into hospital after he was reported to have suddenly stopped breathing. Doctors who examined him at first thought he suffered from severe acid reflux. He underwent surgery to correct the condition – when acid from the stomach backs up into the oesophagus – and was released from hospital.

But two days later he was back in the emergency unit after he mysteriously stopped breathing. Staff suspected he was the victim of abuse and set up a hidden camera on the ward where the baby was recovering. Scott was caught peering into her son’s cot and placing a blanket over his face for up to 20 seconds.

When a nurse briefly enters the room Scott paces the floor and appears to check her cell phone. Then, when left alone she reaches into the cot and with her bare hand clamps it over her baby son’s mouth and nose. The video records her trying to suffocate her son for one minute and 14 seconds.

Heart and lung specialist Dr Sami Heed said the baby would have died but for the intervention of staff when his monitors sounded an alarm.  He told the court: ‘I still get emotional. I get night sweats when I think about it. I take care of the sickest of the sick. His life was being put in danger by someone who was supposed to take care of him.’

Jurors were told that Scott confessed to police she no longer wanted to care for her son and in a taped confession admitting smothering him. Sgt Pedro Criado of the Fort Worth Police Department said Scott told detectives she didn’t want her child anymore. ‘She just basically stated that she just wanted to go back to that carefree attitude she had before she had the child,’ Criado said. She also said it was hard being a teenage mother, complained that the baby’s father didn’t help and added that she didn’t want to deal with the stress anymore.

Doctors said it’s not known if the child will have any lasting injuries from the lack of oxygen. He is being looked after by social workers. Scott faces life imprisonment if convicted of two counts of causing serious bodily injury to a child.

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Man Left to Die in Hospital Corridor – Dead Body Ignored for TEN HOURS, Then Dragged Away

Two heartbroken parents have slammed ‘inhumane’ nurses who left their dead son lying in the middle of a hospital corridor and stepped over his corpse for more than ten hours thinking he was asleep.

Mr Thompson was pulled along the floor after lying in the middle of a hospital corridor and having nurses stepping over his corpse for more than TEN hours thinking he was asleep

CCTV captured staff pulling the lifeless body of Peter Thompson along the floor like they were ‘dragging the body of a dead animal’.

Today a coroner said his death was ‘wholly preventable’ and believes he could have survived but for the neglect of nursing staff, three of whom now face disciplinary proceedings.

41-year-old Mr Thompson had taken a cocktail of drink and drugs but instead of taking him to accident and emergency, staff at the Edale House unit at the Manchester Royal Infirmary left him sprawled on the floor, where he eventually died.

The discovery of the footage has left his family devastated about the indignity of their son’s death in April last year.

Mr Thompson’s father Alan, 60, said: ‘Seeing your own flesh and blood being dragged across the floor like a dead animal is heartbreaking.

‘It was just inhumane what they did to our Peter and I just cannot understand how in this day and age this can be allowed to happen on a hospital corridor in the 21st Century.

‘I can never ever forgive these people for what little they did – no matter what.’

Mother Rene, 59, said: ‘I wish the staff had phoned us to say he was at the hospital. We’d have been down there and at least we’d have been there for him. He’d have had us there with him – we didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye to him.’

Mr Thompson’s daughter Carly, 23, said: ‘I just didn’t realize the extent of the neglect they had shown to my dad until this week.

‘He went to them for help and they left him out in the corridor to die cold, wet and lonely with nothing. I’m disgusted at their treatment of him.’

The incident occurred between April 3 and 4 last year after Mr Thompson, a voluntary in-patient with alcohol and drug problems, was stopped from entering his ward after he turned up with a bottle of vodka and refused to surrender it.

He then fell asleep in the corridor at around 8.10pm after nurses decided to let him ‘sleep off’ the effects of the alcohol.

But rather than wake him up or move him, a member of staff just placed a towel next to the patient and he was not given a blanket or a pillow.

Instead nurses and managers were forced to step over Mr Thompson to get into the Grafton ward.

Senior nurse Helen De Lacy-Leacey said she alerted night staff that the patient was outside the doors of the ward and asked them to: ‘keep an eye on him and make sure he is okay’.

But she ended her shift at 9.15pm and did not try to wake Mr Thompson to carry out a risk assessment of his condition.

And night manager Steve Soobhug said leaving him to sleep outside was ‘the appropriate method of handling the situation at the time’.

Fellow senior staff nurse Miss Dini Oyebadejo said she checked on the patient several more times overnight but discovered him ‘stiff’ at 6.15am and raised the alarm.

When asked if he believed it was dangerous to leave Mr Thompson in his condition, she replied: ‘It could have been dangerous yes. I was concerned about the patient but I felt he needed to sleep. I didn’t want him to leave the ward.’

Mr Thompson formerly of Levenshulme, Manchester was declared dead at 6.43am.

Expert Dr Alan Fletcher a consultant in emergency medicine concluded the victim would have lived had he been taken to an A&E during the night.

A Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust spokesman said: ‘We would like to apologize to Peter Thompson’s family and friends and express our deep regret about the circumstances of his death.

‘This was an isolated incident and does not reflect the high levels of care and dignity with which we treat our service users. On this occasion we fell short of our usual high standard and we are very sorry about this.

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