Gross negligence manslaughter

[Anonymouse2019]

Theoretically speaking, if a woman in premature labour goes to the maternity assessment ward with symptoms of labour, and the consultant WRONGLY tells her she is not in labour and sends her home, before the woman gives birth within hours and the baby passes away - IF the case is deemed medical negligence (towards the mother), is that then indicative of gross negligence manslaughter towards the baby?

I'm really so sorry if this has happened to you or someone you know. I'm neither an obstetrician nor a legal expert, but I believe gross negligence manslaughter would be unlikely to apply in this case.

It's a criminal charge which means that the burden of proof is "beyond reasonable doubt" and the charge pertains to whether negligent actions of the medical professional actually caused the death. In this case, prematurity caused the death and it would be difficult or impossible to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that the alternative actions of admitting the mother and providing some kind of medical treatment would have prevented the same outcome. Many premature births cannot be prevented and many premature babies cannot be saved, despite best measures.

A more typical example of gross negligence manslaughter is administering a treatment which causes death eg fatal administration of a drug at the wrong dose / wrong route / to which the patient is anaphylactic or some other gross mistake in a situation in which the patient was clearly otherwise expected to live.

I hope that someone more knowledgeable comes to advise you soon.

if the baby was still born then no as they were not a live birth, and therefore not a legal person.

If the baby was born live and died subsequently due to prematurity, that could have been saved then the above OP sets that out.

There has been a number of cases re this, the one i recall was a late term miscarriage due to a car accident, where the dangerous driver was not held to be responsible for the manslaughter of a foetus. Because they were not a person in their own right.

I followed these legal developments because it was an attack on abortion rights of women.

Whatever happened is it of value to pursue such a complaint, at the loss of a child who may have in any event not been saved. Loss of a child is truly awful
and answers in such cases must be answered.

prosecutions, on such situations benefit nobody.

It seems like there must be a LOT of extra detail to the story, of course you don’t need to share with us OP but I agree with the above comments. Not sure whether this is theoretical or has happened to you or someone you know, I’m sorry for your loss if that is the case. A good place to start if it hasn’t happened already is with a formal review by the hospital - there are systems to support this process. Often a lot of questions can be answered this way and more understanding of what has actually happened. There will also be a formal complaints process where you are (I am outside of the UK, so not sure the details sorry, others may help). I would not think the first step should be jumping to the legal system for gross negligence manslaughter.

As PP commented, a lot depends on if the baby lived prior to death.

The (civil) test for medical negligence is very high though, it's not enough to prove that the individual doctor got it wrong, you also have to prove that no other reasonable doctor would have made the same mistake.

Yes it happened to me, and yes my baby lived prior to death. Been through the whole complaints procedure. Now with a legal team.

Thank you for your helpful comments. Sickens me to my stomach that I (or anyone else) would ever have to write these words.