UK Health Minister apologizes for +300 baby deaths, deformities
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Sajid Javid apologized after a scandalous report exposing the failure of the health care system in the UK surfaced.
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Rhiannon Davies and Kayleigh Griffiths; two mothers who campaigned for the inquiry after their daughters' deaths. (PA)
Over 200 babies could have survived if they were provided the right health care, according to a report which exposed Britain's largest maternity scandal, calling for an apology by the government.
Read more: UK’s NHS scandal: 300 babies died or left brain-damaged
The report exposed failings in the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust in central England between 2000 and 2019.
According to the review, babies were either stillborn, died shortly after birth, or were left severely brain-damaged. The report was made especially after rising concerns about many neonatal deaths in 2017.
The report revealed that 9 out of 12 mothers who died at birth could have had significantly better treatment, while others were forced to have natural births when they should have had a C-section.
Many families who pushed for the inquiry, upon reading the reports, broke into tears.
"I don't want any other family to have to go through what we've gone through," Charlotte Cheshire, a victim of the failed system told BBC. Cheshire's son, Adam, who is now 11, has contracted several severe health problems after the hospital staff's dismissal of her concerns after Adam sustained an infection after birth.
Sajid Javid, the UK's Minister of Health, promised that those "serious and repeated failures" would be held to account and that a police investigation is looking into 600 cases.
"It's really important that maternity services up and down the country read this and listen to what families have gone through and the impact that's had on people's lives," she added.
In parliament, Javid apologized.
Women and babies remain at risk of unsafe NHS care, experts warn
Although the report has been published recently, there is a shortage of over 2,000 midwives, entailing that women and newborns are at risk of unsafe care in the NHS, according to health leaders.
The final findings are supposed to be published today, Wednesday, providing implications for the future of maternity care in the UK - however, with the shortage of midwives, trusts might not be able to meet the standards implied by the report.
“I am deeply worried when senior staff are saying they cannot meet the recommendations in the Ockenden review which are vital to ensuring women and babies get the safest possible maternity care,” said Gill Walton, chief executive of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM).
The number of midwives has fallen from 26,901 to 27,272 from a year till now.
Last week, the NHS announced a 127 million British pound funding boost for maternity services to improve care for mothers and children.
