Just caught a news headline about a new Mum dying after giving birth following a hospital blunder. What happened?

[MummyPenguin]

There isn't anything on Sky Broadband that I can see.

Message withdrawn

It was several years ago I think - they've just had some sort of hearing or something about it.

Yep that was the one I was thinking of RnB. Details are on BBC Interactive if you have that on your TV.

Have you got a link to it?

here - May 2004

Poor woman. Her poor family.

terrible terrible
she died 2hours after giving birth, wonder why they put epidural in her arm instead of drip

They put the wrong drug it her arm, they used an epidural drug by mistake.

Dfor, they should never have given her an epidural at that point anyway, she'd already given birth. Seems midwife mixed up two drugs. Has happened before. Needs to be much better storage/labelling of drugs.

i thought every drug given had to be checked and confirmed by another member of staff?

terrible tragedy, absolutely awful

I think theoretically this wasn't supposed to be a drug at all, just a plain saline drip (so I'm guessing exempt from checking requirements). Storing bags of saline solution in the same drawer as almost-identical-looking bags of dangerous drug does sound like the height of muppetry, though.

the jist I got was that after the birth a midwife reconnected the wrong bag - assume the epidural bag was still hanging up. alongside the saline. dreadful tragic and terrble mistake. I would also imagine if both bags were already up they had both already been checked. (by 2)
This poor woman was a nurse who worked at that hospital and now her husband is facing beig deported as he was living here on her work permit. shocking just shocking.

You are right, Portandlemon, but similar mistakes have been made before, again and again. How many people died from (IIRC) vincristine being injected into the bloodstream, not the spine - or the other way round?

Most shocking thing - it's all shocking, but worst aspect - is the family say the midwife has never apologised and kept insisting she had done nothing wrong. Flatly denied she'd given the wrong substance, even though the bag was there for all to see.