300 Babies Died Unnecessarily within Socialised Healthcare Unit in UK- Report

BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND - JANUARY 22: Editors Note: This image may have been digitally manipul
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Peter Caddle

A report into maternity care at a unit run by Britain’s socialised healthcare service is to find that over 300 babies died unnecessarily thanks to quotas and an obsession with “natural births” at the expense of medical intervention where required.

The independent investigation looked into the experiences of 1,500 families who received medical treatment at the Shrewsbury and Telford hospital trust between 2000 and 2019, concluding that a number of factors resulted in many of them receiving unnecessarily poor and even deadly ‘care’.

According to a report by The Times, at least twelve mothers died within the unit while trying to give birth, while 300 babies were found to have died unnecessarily.

These deaths were reportedly the result of a fixation on “normal births”, which the publication claims was fueled by targets set by the NHS which aimed to keep the number of caesarean sections performed in hospitals low.

This in turn was reportedly driven by an edict from the World Health Organisation, which in 1985 declared that countries should endeavour to keep their c-section births at levels below 10 to 15 per cent, an instruction the international group reportedly later rolled back.

The report is slated to say, The Times claims, that the fixation led to a number of women being forced to give birth naturally — with some even being given drugs to induce labour — when a c-section would have likely been a better course of medical care.

Speaking on the findings, Donna Ockenden — an experienced midwife who headed up the independent inquiry — said that multiple opportunities to detect and tackle the problem were missed, leading women to be forced into suffering traumatic births.

“There were numerous opportunities for the system to wake up and realise that there was a problem at this trust,” Ockenden said, reportedly “shocked and saddened” by her findings.

“There have been a number of occasions where families tried to be heard over many years and were silenced or ignored,” she continued. “We have seen families that have been split apart, families where relationships have been broken, cases of trauma and PTSD that have persisted for years after the event as well as terrible, terrible sadness.”

“At times, after meeting families, I went back to my hotel room and I cried,” she also said.

“We take full responsibility for the failings in the standards of care within our maternity services including the way in which we dealt with the incidents subsequently, and in the manner in which we communicated and engaged with those involved,” said one spokesman for the trust.

“We offer our sincere apologies for all the distress and hurt we know this caused,” they continued.

While the example of Shrewsbury and Telford hospital trust is particularly stark, this is far from the first time the UK’s socialised healthcare service has been found to have acted in an improper manner.

For example, one hospital run by the health service reportedly covered up a rape by a trans person in one of their wards, claiming that “the rape could not have happened” as “there was no male in the hospital”.

“It has taken nearly a year for the hospital to agree that there was a male on the ward and, yes, this rape happened,” the British House of Lords was told by Baroness Emma Nicholson regarding the incident.

“During that year she has almost come to the edge of a nervous breakdown because being disbelieved about being raped in hospital has been such an appalling shock,” Nicholson continued. “The hospital, with all its CCTV, has had to admit that the rape happened and that it was committed by a man.”

However, despite this incident, along with many others, the UK’s NHS has developed a sort of cultic status in the United Kingdom, with politicians even attacking people online who dare criticise it. “How about you show some respect for the NHS,” demanded Health Secretary Sajid Javid when one individual complained regarding the selection of vaccines available in the service.

 

 

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