To feel sorry for this doctor?

[HarryStylesismycrack]

I am not in any way downplaying the death of that beautiful little boy and it is clearly acknowledged there were some failures by the doctor in question however AIBU to feel as though this intervention by the GMC into the independent decision making by the MPTS is concerning? It appears to me that the MPTS took into account many things, not just the outcome (which I completely acknowledge is heartbreaking), the fact that this doctor was working the job of several other medical staff in an unfamiliar environment with significant IT issues with no senior input. It feels like this doctor has been made a bit of a scapegoat for huge systemic failures.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/jack-adcock-latest-downs-syndrome-death-doctor-hadiza-babwa-garba-struck-off-general-medical-council-a8177721.html

A different link to a blog by other medical practitioners 54000doctors.org/blogs/an-account-by-concerned-uk-paediatric-consultants-of-the-tragic-events-surrounding-the-gmc-action-against-dr-bawa-garba.html

Dh is a nurse said the same thing guys

She is a junior doctor and the consultant was at home also their were only agancey nurses

dh was very clear he felt this harsh sense as given to start with because she was black

dh was very clear he felt this harsh sentence.was given to start with because she was black

^I completely agree. The same way the Daily Mail has played it has to do with the colour of her skin.

I also feel very sorry for the nurse who got struck off within this and remains that way.
I wonder why she didn't get crowd funding to fight her case? Surely she is as unguilty as Dr BH?

BG (fat fingers!)

The nurse had 25 year unblemished career. Whichnyou would like to think would have gone in her favour. But no, she’s judged on her actions on one day which admittedly were below standard but she accepted that and there were circumstances of being understaffed and lack of equipment. Plus when she tried to raise concerns she was told not to.

If she had been a nurse for 25 years that could well put her in the 50+ age bracket....close to retirement. Maybe she just thought fuck it. That for only a few more years of a career it wasn’t worth fighting it. Afaik she hasn’t appealed. Maybe she couldn’t face the thought of going back to work even if cleared.

I certainly know nurses who have left nursing because the worry of something like this happening to them gets so bad that they can’t sleep at night. When I used to work in a hospital it made me so anxious, i wpuld come home from a shift and over analyse everything.....did I do this, did I document that. The blame culture is oppressive. Notes being audited and pulled in the office to have everything questioned.

I got pulled up once for documenting the word “knickers” after helping a patient remove their knickers. Was told it was unprofessional and I should have put underwear. I pointed out if I’d put underwear I would have been told off for not being specific enough as that could have meant bra. It really does feel like management are out to get you.

YANBU. She was scapegoated, and in particular the actions of other people who also potentially contributed to the death, ie the consultant and parents, are highly shady. They're blaming her to distract from their own complaints.

And as for moralising about those criticising the parents, DFOD. Theirs is an attitude that's going to make the NHS worse for all of us and should not be given airtime. I'm calling it what it is.

Nico, your knickers story sums it up, damned if you do, damned if you don't. I wouldn't work in the nhs, no wonder it's so short staffed. Who wants to risk their registration, livelihood and mental health knowing they will be scapegoats when the system fails them and their patients.

There seems to me a general lack of ignoring a great deal of evidence that's actually relevant here.

I will clarify I'm not in any way medically trained but I do have a lot of experience of DS.

Firstly a child isn't generally taken to a and e for D and V. It's advised not to. This to me would indicate overall health concerns from the parents - maybe because of the DS?

That the parents chose to give the medication and seemed to seek dr advice until they got the answer they wanted - which was to administer it if they wanted.

A child with DS and heart defects can be at greater risk of chest infection which I believe they sought tests for?

This wasn't one DR providing a lack of care but a busy understaffed peads unit and a very sick and vulnerable young child who didn't present with the symptoms he later died of.

I understand his blood gases were raised but no one got this info - again due to failures of system. But I understand later bases showed improvement and that isn't being reported so much?

The whole situation has be bourne out of an angry grieving mum and and NHS happy to scapegoat 2 staff members and a justice system who didn't hear all the evidence available from the internal report.

It's a very close line pushing these criminal charges as it's leading more towards the expectation that Drs should be God's.

We already have a problem with recruitment of nhs staff (alongside teachers which doesn't surprise me either!) and it needs to be rectified from the government downwards.
I don't think it'll happen though all the time we have a government that thinks only people who can afford private are worthwhile.

Motherhood I would say no. The manslaughter trial didn’t have the right perspective on whether these were extraordinary errors and what the working conditions were.

I’m amazed by how little weight seems to have been put on the mother’s contribution

vivalabeaver Jacks mother gave him the medication, she asked and was told that although it was not noted on his medicine notes (Dr B had decided it was not appropriate due to his level of dehydration) therefore medical staff could not administer it was fine for her as his parent to do so. The enquiry said the drug was not implicated in his eventual death.

when I first read about this in the news, it was very clear to me that this was a systemic failure, not the indivudual dr and nurse fault.

I'm glad that she got this outcome. and I'm also glad for my private health insurance...

Private health insurance is pointless if you're really sick, ie ill enough to need intensive care, it's only the NHS that can provide that.

She was convicted of GNM, and many of us would feel that law doesn't do the best job at covering situations where failures are institutional and systemic. So some of this problematic situation is maybe unavoidable given the legal parameters. The judge also seems not to have directed the jury to consider the conditions in the hospital. This isn't my area of law so I'm not sure if that was a judicial fuck up or it wasn't legally possible, but again that's unsatisfactory. She did only get a suspended sentence so perhaps that tells you something.

However, there are aspects of this case and the coverage that didn't need to happen. The GMC weren't obliged to take the actions they did. And the way in which the parents have been given a sympathetic platform to peddle their version is appallingly irresponsible. They're literally scapegoating her for their own actions, and ethical journalism would recognise this.

Basically, Dr Bawa Garba has been put through much more than was necessary or fair, even in the context of GNM laws that arguably don't do a good job of covering the austerity situation in the NHS.

Additionally, she could have been Myra fucking Hindley and it still wouldn't have been acceptable to leave her exclusively breastfed newborn several hours without the food source.

That's incredibly dangerous. The baby could've ended up having to be hospitalised and tube fed, given that they won't always take bottles on first introduction.

Ming there was a medical trial a few years later where the judge chucked the case against the doctors out as he saw failures in the system. The doctors involved weren't white but they were male.

Oh and as far as I'm concerned the consultant was covering his back. The consultants and senior nursing staff I know have to repeatedly stand up to management over under staffing. In fact one nurse has now gone off work abroad and I'm happy for her.

So many failures around Hadiza - Dr O'Riordan who's skipped the country after scapegoating her, the doctor that approved mum giving the enalapril, whoever did not communicate the context of the crash call, the department for leaving her covering four wards with no consultant on site and not immediately getting people to act down to help, the hospital for allowing a mixture of parent and nurse given drugs.

That's why she shouldn't have been singled out. But she has been, and that's the issue with the case.

The Adcocks can't see past their noses, such is their grief, and it's understandable why they're seething. But the GMC went against the hearing process they set up to strike off this woman.

Thanks, not mine at all so I'll take your word for it! But from what I know of both GNM and corporate manslaughter, neither adequately cover avoidable deaths relating from understaffing that is forced by budgets. After all it's not like the managers are happy about the financial parameters they're being forced to work under.

I’m sat in the chemo unit today plugged into the wall and unable to move. The radio above my head is playing radio 2 which is about to have a phone in on this. It’s going to make me mad isn’t it?

Unfortunately there’s a big poster saying not to ask for the radio to be turned off!

The parents were insistent that another doctor be asked about the drug, they refused to take no for an answer apparently. It wasn't clear whether or not someone else said yes or if they just gave it to him anyway.

From what I saw on TV yesterday mum asked the nurse if she should give it, the nurse went away and came back saying, 'I can't give it because it is not prescribed', mum then gave it.

One other thing no one seems to have mentioned is that this little boy had down's syndrome. People with DS often have poor immune systems so can become more poorly or poorly quicker than someone without the syndrome I don't know if this played any part in his death/health but it may have done.

Interesting that no caller on the R2 programme has yet blamed the doctor. All the criticism so far has been of the system.

The lawyer who kept banging on about driving offences was a bit much. Does he not have a volume setting?