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this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2023
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One dead baby, a tragedy.
Two dead babies, a concern.
Fourteen dead babies, I don't care about her. She's fucked. But what fucking hospital has 14 dead babies? Are you saying you cant identify a pattern after 4 or 5?
The heads of the hospital should be gutted.
Call that place "The dead baby hospital" because wtf.
Multiple doctors came forward to say that their concerns were ahot down by hospital administrators. They cared more about a bad mark on their record than a someone harming newborns under their watch.
Administrators should be gutted in a public square. And let's not stop with these ones.
Are administrators actually going to face any punishment?
The senior nurse who was in charge of her was suspended the other day. No idea if any others will face consequences.
Two of the administrators have since retired. One of which decided to bugger off and retire in France.
She worked in neo natal. That is already "at risk" births. Premature. Addicts. All sorts of things that are risky to begin with. I'm not justifying anything she or the administration did. However it is to be expected at times in those units. Sounds heartless but my family was in those departments for many years.
Okay but the mortality numbers for her unit pretty clearly and obviously pointed to the fact that something was happening here other than the natural deaths one would expect in a NICU
Absolutely. However it took more time because it's an inherent risk for the unit.
They said other than when she was working, and before and after she left the number was around or close to 0-2 per year, so pretty obviously an anomaly and certainly worthy of an investigation. The doctors that reported her were punished by the administrators and actually forced to apologise to her so I think they are pretty guilty in the circumstances.
Kill a bunch of babies? Jail forever.
Ignore someone killing babies to keep your £250,000 a year job safe? That's just good neoliberaling.
How is it liberal, neo or not, dumdum?
@Potatos_are_not_friends @Lanky_Pomegranate530
She murdered 7 babies and attempted to murder 6 others.
Please read the article instead of just the headline.
That's still ridiculous!
I know, how do you manage to “attempt” to kill an infant? They aren’t exactly known for being durable.
She alternated between giving them insulin, injecting air into their bloodstream, and overfeeding them. The babies that recovered most likely did so either because they weren't in bad shape to begin with, or because they coded while a competent doctor or nurse was on call and able to stabilize them, or because of luck. One of the babies she attempted to kill survived, but has severe cerebral palsy and requires a feeding tube. There's no definitive way to say that the nurse's attempts on her life caused her condition, as she was already a preemie and at risk for multiple complications, but I'd say the lack of durability definitely led to at least some lasting damage for some of the babies that recovered.
What was the purpose of over feeding them?
I'm guessing to kill them
I'm not a doctor so this is me just trying to piece together info from other sources, but it sounds like overfeeding can cause a lot of issues that premature babies aren't developed enough to deal with on their own, like severe gas and bloating. Depending on how delicate the baby is, this might lead to a cascade of problems that are difficult to diagnose, treat, and recover from. With babies that underdeveloped, even something as benign as eating too much can become deadly.
But again, not a doctor, and a quick Google search turned up a bunch of complicated articles that don't really clarify. I just know that it was one of her strategies for worsening the babies' condition.
Depending on why the infant is in the neonatal unit, specific food can have extremely deleterious effects. Disorders of metabolism are rare, but not as rare as you think, and most are controlled with specific diets. So if she purposely fed the wrong food, and in large amounts, it could absolutely kill certain populations. If an otherwise 'healthy' infant, the most likely cause due to overfeeding would be vomiting, and then aspiration of the vomitus. Infants, especially neonates, are very unlikely to be able to protect their airway. Even if a patient is already on the operating table, survival rates of aspirating vomitus is only 50% or so. That's why you don't eat/drink before surgery, btw.
Oh okay it's fine then.
Oh how fucking silly of me that she murdered 7 babies instead of my original number.
Lots of people die in hospitals every day. Even babies. That's why they collect data, in order to see a pattern when it emerges.
@Potatos_are_not_friends
Ok.
Looks like she might have targeted higher risk babies so it's harder to catch, and of course many murders seem to be really good at faking feelings and appearing innocent. One part in the article makes me think all the victims were premature births, and that some of them were especially at risk due to that.
I'd say deaths in hospital aren't rare. Especially in premature babies where survival could go either way. If you're going to murder babies, a hospital is probably the place where you're going to go unnoticed the longest.
That said, the timeline is pretty damning. Over a decade she'd still be doing it, but this was all in the space of just over a year.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-interactive/2023/aug/18/lucy-letby-timeline-attacks-babies-when-alarm-raised