Fifth woman in 18 months dies at hospital with three times average death rate

12 April 2012

A fifth woman in 18 months has died at a hospital trust where maternal death rates are three times the national average.

Violet Stephens was 31 weeks' pregnant when she was admitted to Queen's Hospital in Romford with high blood pressure. She died four days later.

Weeks earlier, a report by NHS watchdog the Care Quality Commission had found the hospital's maternity unit was not "taking all the proper steps" to ensure patient safety and ordered it to make significant changes or face prosecution or part-closure.

Ms Stephens's death on April 9 is the second at the unit this year and the fifth at Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals trust, which runs Queen's, in 18 months. Today the family of Ms Stephens, from Romford, said her care had been "mismanaged".

After she was admitted, she complained of gastric pain and was diagnosed with the life-threatening complication HELLP syndrome. She died hours after an emergency Caesarean in which her son Christian was delivered healthy.

Her sister, midwife Kitty Mhango, criticised the hospital for failing to diagnose the symptoms quicker, saying her life could have been saved.

Ms Mhango, 54, said: "My sister had all the symptoms of needing an emergency C-section before she was given one. She had high blood pressure and gastric pain, two clear symptoms of HELLP.

"They should have taken action as soon as
possible, not left it four days. My sister died before she even got to hold her baby." A month later, she said, she was called by the hospital and told to collect Christian, but not given further help or advice: "There was no mention of whether I should be seeing a health visitor or anything. I feel this hospital has let my family down."

Stephen Burgess, medical director at the trust, said: "A full external investigation is taking place. A consultant and senior midwives were fully involved in all decisions concerning her care."

Official figures show there are about eight maternal deaths per 100,000 births in the UK. Last year there were just over 10,000 births at Barking, Havering and Redbridge trust. It means there were about three times more deaths at the trust than the national average.

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