3:25 AM
Anonymous
A mother fought a two-year battle with a hospital when her baby was wrongly certified as being stillborn after fatal mistakes by staff.
Ava Mae Charlton was born by emergency caesarean section but she struggled to breathe and died after only 32 minutes.
Hospital officials tried to claim the baby was stillborn and so her d***th did not need to be investigated. But her parents Emma and Terry Charlton always maintained their daughter had been alive.
They fought for an inquest until – after two years – the hospital finally admitted that Ava had not been stillborn, allowing the scrutiny of a hearing.
Her d***th followed those of two other babies at Milton Keynes Hospital in similar circumstances, when the mothers had to wait for a caesarean to be carried out.
Following the latest tragedy, coroner Tom Osborne has ordered managers to report all stillbirths and neonatal deaths to him for further investigation.
Mrs Charlton, a teacher, 31, said: ‘People questioned my sanity and it was infuriating because I knew my baby had been alive. I was grief-stricken and vulnerable and you just accept what health professionals tell you.
‘But when they handed me that stillborn certificate, I knew something wasn’t right.
Then a meeting with our consultant opened up a whole can of worms and highlighted a number of errors that had been made.’
Ava’s death in September 2009 came when the maternity unit was still reeling from criticism into the d**th of another baby, Ebony McCall, four months before. Then, Mr Osborne had condemned staff shortages which contributed to her demise as ‘nothing short of scandalous’.
The deaths of the two girls bear an uncanny resemblance. Both went into distress and both mothers had to wait a considerable time for caesareans.
Ava, like Ebony, would very probably be alive today had the surgery been carried out sooner, the inquest heard.
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