Guernsey Press

Misconduct hearing into baby deaths will not end until autumn

THREE midwives accused of misconduct after the death of a baby in 2014 are to be allowed to continue to work at least until the end of the hearing in September.

Published

The midwives, Lisa Granville, Tuija Roussel and Antonia Manousaki, will have to wait to receive the verdict on their misconduct hearing until the autumn.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council hearing was adjourned yesterday following four weeks of evidence taking.

It will resume in July when the defences will be put forward. Following the defences, the panel will sit again in September.

The panel yesterday delayed announcing its decision on a 'no case to answer' application for two of the accused as it has yet to be written up.

Although a decision has been made, hearing panel chairman Alexander Coleman said he would not give any 'verbal headlines' in case they were 'misrepresented'. The decision will be known in July.

'Inevitably we will need more time than the two weeks in July,' he said.

To prepare for this, he set two further weeks aside for the hearing in September.

Having begun in January, the hearing has run for eight weeks and will now span more than eight months.

Katherine Higgins, representing the NMC, did not apply for an interim order yesterday, which could have placed conditions on the midwives' continued practice or banned it altogether.

The three midwives were working on Loveridge Ward when a child, referred to only as Baby A, was born on 30 January 2014.

The desperately ill baby required resuscitation and died later that day.

During the case, the NMC was told the death might have been prevented if the death of another baby two years earlier had been properly investigated.

The culture on the ward was criticised and labelled the 'The Guernsey Way'.

The midwives are accused of administering drugs without speaking to a consultant, an act which would 'not take place anywhere else in Britain'.

The hearing, in London, will resume for two weeks from 17 July when the defence case will be put forward, and again for a further two weeks from 18 September.

Sorry, we are not accepting comments on this article.