Baby dies in childbirth. Parents not allowed to take body home.

[RedToothBrush]

What has the UK become?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/health-48907130?__twitter_impression=TRUE
NHS fees: 'Couple couldn't take baby's body home'

Charging overseas patients for NHS care in England must be suspended until it is clear it is not harming women, the Royal College of Midwives has said.

A couple whose baby died following an emergency Caesarean were not given the body as they were unable to pay £10,000 in medical fees, one doctor has said.

Joe Rylands said the expansion of charging had caused "disbelief" among many colleagues.

The Department of Health said the charges had raised £1.3bn since 2015.

In 2018, Dr Rylands was working in a maternity hospital when a woman from Western Europe on holiday in the UK came in - she was eight months pregnant and had started bleeding. Obstetricians performed an emergency Caesarean but the baby died.

When she and her partner were recovering on a ward, they were interviewed by an overseas visitors manager, in charge of billing.

Because they did not have a valid European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) they were told they had to pay £10,000 for the care they received - which they could not do.

sickoffamilydrama they want to take the body home - which is not in the UK. So they need repatriation which is expensive and they don't have money.

If it was going to a local funeral director that's a different situation. In the UK funeral directors provide services FOC for still births. When we lost our son the cremation was all arranged for us and we paid nothing. This might be the route they have to take if they can't afford to repatriate as ashes are easier to transport out of the country.

*QueeniesPotOfRouge

Sorry, that wasn’t directed at stoptheplanet, more at people who keep arguing that many countries do things this way or that way.

I didn't take it that way and I agree with you 💯.

@FormerMediocreMale agree repatriation is expensive but that's a separate issue to the not releasing of the body/ not doing the paperwork.

I've done repatriation work and the hospitals I e worked with don't charge families for the care of the body and the bereavement services so I can't see that it's outside the EHIC either.

From a feminist point of view in the past how women that experienced still birth have been treated is shocking.

How some hospitals have treated alive patients has been awful let alone the dead so along with things like that & the babies ashes scandals would it be any shock of this was true?

EHIC will not cover the cost of being flown back to the UK from any destination in case of an accident or injury. It can sometimes come as a shock to holidaymakers from the UK but these costs can easily reach tens of thousands of pounds. As the EHIC does not cover these costs, the patient is liable for the costs.

The story has huge gaps, we don't know what paperwork has or has not been issued, we don't know if they got to say their goodbyes with the baby laid out, we don't knowiknowif/ why the EHIC paperwork can not be sorted out, there is so much missing from the story.

It does say though that they want to take the body home and home is not the UK so would require repatriation, which is not the same as a DIY funeral.

I don't know the rules about repatriating bodies, but charging for maternity care is definitely a thing. Women who are living in the UK but don't have their immigration status sorted get bills starting at £7,000. It is not just women travelling from abroad. Some of the women charged for care are completely destitute, but they still get a bill and get chased to make payment. This is not what the NHS was set up to do.

Maternity Action has done some work on this. Some of the health professional groups are also very critical of it.

@Sickoffamilydrama

Is there no legal requirement for the body to be safely disposed of?

If someone takes a body from hospital there must surely be some rules about what you can do with it from a public health point of view.

They could have driven the baby home even - not ideal, but what about this situation is?

Whilst breaking the laws of every country you pass through. You can't just drive around with a dead body.

I'm still unsure what has happened. Where is the body of the baby?

@Gingerkittykat
Yes there is laws that mean you must properly dispose of a body. However the hospital has no legal obligation to check on this or enforce it.

Given the fact that people can and do bury loved ones on their own land and do not have to get permission from anyone or return any paperwork to any authority I don't believe there's anyone actually checking.

In fact I've heard of a priest who it was discovered when he died had never completed the proper paperwork for years and considering no one noticed I doubt anyone is really checking.

So if normally hospitals don't check where a body is going to why would they this time?

If they were in the US without insurance they would either have been refused care or billed for $1million. Sounds like they wanted free care

I’ve not seen the detail so can’t think the twitter story is entirely accurate or complete. On the surface it sound callous but I’m cynical of media stories.

Emergency care is available to all on the NHS. It was an emergency section and should be free.

Lots of bereaved new mothers take their babies home until the funeral. Lots of hospitals have cool cots or Moses baskets they can lend.
Sometimes a post Mortem is required so that would be a possible reason. If there was a significant public health risk such as a serious infection risk, that would be a reason.

The law does permit burial in your own garden but any grave must be marked on the deeds.A girl my daughter knew died ,very sadly, from untreated severe tonsillitis when she started at university. Her mother has her in the garden.

You can bury a body on your own land but you need permission and documentation from local council before you do and it has to follow strict guidelines regarding water courses.

They are not from the UK though and can't just bury anywhere they feel like it.

For anyone interested this website www.naturaldeath.org.uk/index.php?page=home-burial
has some good information about Burial on private land and no you don't need permission from the council but obviously if you were doing it yourself then I'd advice checking for watercourses with the environment agency.
If you see the section about returning the slip to the registrar that's the bit of paperwork I was talking about that I know has sat in at least one priests office for years with no one from the registrar office noticing apparently he had about 10 years worth.

Looking at the article again it never says they refused to give the body over more they refused to allow the parents time with the body.

*Advise stupid autocorrect 🤦‍♀️

In the UK you do need permission and as pp said it has had to be marked on the deeds. Avoiding water courses is not an advisory but essential.

www.gov.uk/guidance/cemeteries-and-burials-prevent-groundwater-pollution

When we lost our son we were not automatically given time with him, we requested it and the bereavement team then made arrangements. There was a partial autopsy so the baby was kept at the hospital. On the most part we were treated well. When I had a missed miscarriage at another hospital the staff were pretty horrific, to them it was no big deal. I know how horrible this situation is I've been there.

All I'm saying is we have half a story and all the talk about DIY funerals is irrelevant when they are not UK citizens.

Found some info on repatriation of a body FROM the UK.

www.dignityfunerals.co.uk/what-to-do-when-someone-dies/body-repatriation/#from-the-uk

Looks like one of the things you have to do is have the involvement of a funeral director as the country of destination will normally require the body to be embalmed.

Plus sealed coffin is a given (you can't even transport a dead pet by air unless it is in a sealed coffin) and then there is all the paperwork that the country of destination needs to allow the body to be taken home.

Plus if they weren't flying they would need paperwork to allow the body to be transited through each country they drove through.

So if the parents didn't have insurance (which can cover repatriation) and didn't want a burial in the UK (and didn't want a cremation) then they still would have had to pay out between £2000 - £4000 to get their baby home, or even more.

If they couldn't pay for a funeral director to take over and deal with this issue then the coroner may not have been able to release the baby to the parents as they would have to make sure proper channels would be followed regarding repatriation before releasing the baby's body.

So maybe the NHS can't release the baby's body because the parents can't get all the documents needed to get approval from their country to bring their baby home.

Its not like if you die in the UK and are buried/ cremated here That's pretty simple, you just need a death certificate and then the next of kin can do what they want (within reason!). When I snuff it family members will pick me up from the coroner and drive me to the crematorium in the back of a transit van!