A heartbroken mother and father have finally been given justice after an inquest heard that hospital 'neglect' contributed to their baby girl's death. Donna Lea and Nathan Stevenson told how they 'live with that heartache every second of every day'.
Their daughter Addison Lea died at the Royal Stoke University Hospital last September. A series of NHS blunders saw Donna wrongly transferred to an ante-natal ward, no face-to-face consultation before that move, and a delay in diagnosing Addison, Stoke on Trent Live reports.
And the inquest also laid bare a dispute between two midwives and a maternity support worker about what really happened in the hours before Addison was born at 30 weeks and five days gestation. Now Donna and Nathan have welcomed the inquest findings and want answers regarding any disciplinary action taken against the two midwives. StokeonTrentLive has chosen not to name the whistle-blowing maternity support worker.
In a statement, Donna and Nathan, from Trent Vale, said: "We are happy with the outcome - it was as we expected. They were in the wrong - they didn't do their job as they should have. Nothing will ever bring our daughter back and we live with that heartache every second of the day.
"We are happy that steps are being put in place to try to make sure this doesn't happen again. It's just a shame this change came as a result of my daughter dying.
"We want to personally thank the maternity support worker on the ward and her continued support in her statement. She did her job and the right thing in trying to get me the help we were desperately asking for that day.
"We hope the NHS will keep us updated on disciplinary action taken in respect of the two midwives that accused me of faking my pains and in turn ignored my pleas for help. We will never, ever, get over the loss of our daughter and hope no-one else suffers the same fate. When she died I promised I wouldn't stop until the truth was out and I got her justice and I hope I've manged do to that."
The Royal Stoke has carried out a root cause analysis review following Addison's death. The trust is now implementing an action plan with 'systemic' changes.
North Staffordshire assistant coroner Sarah Murphy found Addison's death was 'contributed to by neglect' at last week's inquest.
