You are currently browsing the daily archive for October 26, 2009.
No picture with this post because it’s just too distressing. It’s about a couple who desperately wanted a child and finally got their chance. The Daily Mail reports that it literally ended in tragic tears for the parents. You can see their pictures and their baby’s at the link.
Johanne Rees waited 90 minutes to give birth at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff. With each minute, little Arun, still inside his mother’s womb, was starved of oxygen. After 32 weeks, she was admitted to hospital with abdominal pains. Doctors had already said she could be at risk of a miscarriage. All the more important, then, to ensure that she was being monitored. Although heart monitor readings showed the baby was ‘in distress’, staff told Ms Rees to go to the washroom as she had probably eaten something which disagreed with her.
The Mail takes up the story:
Eventually an emergency Caesarean was performed an hour and a half later on a second doctor’s recommendation.
Arun was taken to the special baby care unit after he was delivered but had suffered irreversible brain damage.
Miss Rees and Mr Govekar [her husband] switched off his life support machine after ten days.
The couple who own a restaurant in Penarth, South Wales, said their lives had been completely devastated by the death of their son.
Miss Rees, now 48, said: ‘After the upset of an earlier miscarriage, we were both thrilled when I became pregnant again. It was all we wanted and it was taken away from us.’
If the name Arun Rees looks familiar to UK readers, this is because the story is four years old but resurfaced on October 13, as the couple are reaching closure with the hospital. They have finally received an apology from University Hospital in Cardiff and £160,000 in compensation. Mr Govekar told The Mail:
‘The last four years have been a relentless battle to gain answers. Arun’s death has taken its toll on us both.
‘It has affected our health, our ability to work and at times it threatened to break up our relationship completely.
‘We can only hope that we can now move forward with our lives.’
Their solicitor (attorney) said that had the hospital taken appropriate action earlier, little Arun would probably have been alive today. The hospital spokeswoman offers the usual condolences.
This isn’t an anti-NHS article, because this story could happen anywhere. However, it does go to show how nonchalance and lack of care can impact people’s lives — in this case, that of a possible family, now a childless couple forever.
Churchmouse Campanologist 