Hospital accused of ‘cover up’ after review finds failings in delivery of baby born with brain damage

Hospital authorities in Wales have been accused of attempting to cover up failings in the delivery of a baby born with significant brain damage.

Gethin Channon, who was born on 25 March 2019 at Singleton Hospital, in Swansea, suffers from quadriplegic cerebral palsy, a severe disability that requires 24/7 care.

There were complications during his birth, due to him being in an abnormal position that prevented normal delivery, and he was eventually born via Caesarean section.

An independent review commissioned by Swansea Bay University Health Board (SBUHB), which manages Singleton Hospital, found “several adverse features” surrounding Gethin’s delivery that were omitted from or “inaccurately specified” in the hospital’s internal report.

The investigation, carried out by obstetrician, Dr Bill Kirkup, said SBUHB “significantly” downplayed the “suboptimal” care received by Gethin and his mother, Sian, and erroneously attributed his condition to a blocked windpipe.

It also suggests that amendments were retrospectively made to examination notes taken by staff during the course of Mrs Channon’s labour.

Following the conclusion of the review, SBUHB appears to have questioned the credentials of Dr Kirkup, who is currently chairing the East Kent maternity review and received a CBE in 2008 for his work.

The family said that SBUHB, which was flagged by national inspectors in the months after Gethin’s birth due to “concerns” over its ability to deliver “safe and effective” maternal care, had “covered-up” the failings in their case.

SBUHB said it has been “working tirelessly” with the family to investigate and address their concerns, and said it would be inappropriate to comment on specific allegations as the process was ongoing.

Dr Kirkup was initially instructed by the health board to investigate complaints made by the Channon family over the quality of nursing support they received to help care for Gethin after his birth.

However, as part of his investigation, he identified various alleged abnormalities during Mrs Channon’s labour that he said were not viewed as “material” by staff because an umbilical cord blood sample taken following Gethin’s birth, which helps to evaluate a newborn’s health, returned results “within normal limits”.

Dr Kirkup wrote: “Not only does this significantly play down the importance of the suboptimal care in labour and potential for learning and improvement, it is methodologically unsound to rely on a single result that stood in sole contradiction to an otherwise coherent clinical picture.”

In five separate examinations, one of which was carried out the day before the delivery, it was “described or suspected” by staff that Gethin was stuck in a position incompatible with normal birth, the review found.

An examination of Gethin’s mother, at 8.30am on the day of his birth, had indicated that he was in an abnormal position which should have led to an immediate C-section, but this detail was “inexplicably omitted” from the hospital’s internal report, Dr Kirkup said.

The C-section was not carried out until more than four hours later — and only came after repeated attempts, described as “hazardous” and “futile”, to manually rotate Gethin.

Scans of Gethin’s heartbeat prior to birth should also have alerted staff to the gravity of the situation, the report suggested. “… there was a progressive rise in baseline heart rate later, suggesting deterioration in the baby’s condition,” the review found.

Amendments also appear to have been made to one examination note to present a clinical picture that wrongly indicated Gethin was progressing down the birth canal safely, Dr Kirkup’s review suggested.

“It was seemingly an attempt to hide that they should have seen the problem and acted upon it,” Robert Channon, Gethin’s father, said.

An SBUHB review “found no evidence to support the allegation that the records had been altered …”

Xural.com