On the 15th of September, Alison Blenkinsop and myself, met at Yarl's Wood, with UK Border Agency and Serco staff present. I can't name them, as they refused to allow me to do so. Likewise, I can't report much of what was said, as they refused to agree on the wording on anything. They were considerably more junior than Brian Pollett and Jeremy Oppenheim. This letter to your MP, is the first time I've seen Jeremy Oppenheim's name mentioned.
The only point they would agree, was that it was an administrative problem, that resulted in the formula not being brought in in time. They declined to agree on how to 'term' the administrative problem. They rejected "communication breakdown" and several other terms. They said the administrative issue would never arise again.
However, they refused, point blank, to accept that there was any 'issue' with Baby C's care and treatment, in terms of giving the baby oral rehydration sachets for the time period. They stated 15 hours, not 18 hours. They did state that the baby had been 'fed', and we protested robustly that oral hydration fluids was not food. They ignored all of Alison's points that the baby required food, and that not giving it food, was an unacceptable standard of care. We stated that's all we wanted, a statement that it was an unacceptable standard of care, and an assurance it would never happen again. They rejected this completely.
They also stated that the formula was not a prescription item, several times, and again refused to take on board that it was, when Alison and myself stated it was. (This is important, as it really calls into question their assertion they phoned several out of hours chemists. Not only does the time line not allow for this, if there was no prescription, they could not have obtained any formula, and, further, any chemist phoned would have told them this.)
When asked point blank why they simply hadn't picked the phone up and phoned the Bedford Hospital, they refused to answer. Likewise, when Alison asked how she was told by Brian Pollet at 10.30am, the formula was in the compound, why the baby hadn't been given it 'till 1pm, they refused to answer. We were 'nitpicking' on unimportant detail and let's 'move forward' shall we?
For interest sake for your MP... the only other thing that was hard and fast discussed, with them admitting it, was that a letter I'd written to Yarl's Wood medical, about conditions and safe formula prep, in April 2008, had never been answered. This contradicted UK Border Agency's previous statements, to me, in writing, that I had had several repsonses, including dates the responding letters and emails were sent out. The UK Border Agency person who had told me in writing, in no uncertain terms, that I'd been responded to, in quite a sharp fashion, was in the room. Yet she never apologised to me. Serco stated they had apologised to her, and they did apologize to me for the lack of being able to find the letters. When I pushed on why UK Border Agency had been put in the position of being told that Serco had responded fully when this wasn't true, nothing was put forward to explain it. No words we used to describe this, were accepted by UK Border Agency. They refused to describe it variously as - lies, misinformation, a breakdown in communication. Just that they could not locate any correspondance, and as the member of staff concerned was no longer in their employ, and they would not suffer any more discusion on it. This is something an MP would find interesting - a UK Government department being told by a contractor, that a concerned party had been fully answered on a legitimate communication. But when pushed to produce copies of such when the concerned party stated she'd had no response at all, no correspondance could be found.
The meeting was difficult, and un-productive. As they refused point blank to accept that there had been any lack in the care of Baby C, we left with nothing having changed from when we went in. And as we had no permission to discuss anything at all, there isn't much more to say. Serco actually turned round to the UK Border Agency person who was in charge of the meeting, and said something like "Careful what you say now, she'll put it on the itnernet."
I did point out that Transparency and Accountability were basic tenants of our current Government, and this was about such, but that was ignored as well.
No change will come about at Yarl's Wood in the area of not feeding the baby for so long, as they maintained there was nothing wrong with that. They simply refused to discuss it at all.
Feel free to copy and paste this to your MP, as well as tell your MP I can discuss it in more detail, directly with them.
I found it very interesting that they are so 'shy' of Mums on the internet... obviously we are some amazingly dodgy bunch, not tax payers and voters.