I'm not sure leaving your patient unattended (we were told her shift supervisor said she was not to leave the child in her room as it was a critical case) to seek solace in another room is at all an acceptable way of dealing with trauma! And she was assigned to her patient and not the other as we were told the other nurse was less qualified so was given the more stable patient. Defying your shift leader's orders to do your own thing would be worthy of a reprimand at the best of times. There are off duty ways to deal with trauma that don't impact your day to day workings. On duty, her only concern should have been for patient safety and well being and following the duties assigned to support it. Protocols exist for a reason. Can you imagine if her own patient had collapsed and died while she was away in another room, not following instructions and advice? That on its own would have caused her and the hospital claims of negligence by the family. Also - this can't have been her first baby death - she wasn't a newbie nurse, she was the second senior most on that ward.
The impression I had from all the comments made by her friends and family is that she was hard working, and dedicated to the job. So i assumed it meant she was also meticulous, maintained a tight shift and was a stickler for protocol especially around patient care and safety. I have been surprised tbh that the evidence is showing a pattern of:
- Disobeying orders and doing her own thing for personal reasons on more than one occassion
- Not documenting or flagging quite critical things and risks (the episode with the mum and her notes, not asking for the bags to be checked like she claimed she had to the police, taking home someone else's handover sheet, ignoring SHO advice to do a feed)
- Some dubious behaviour (whatever my own feelings on the FB search I do think it wrong to track a grieving family you've met through work - as a patient myself I'd feel violated. Can you imagine if it was a male doctor tracking a vulnerable female patients??)
- Unless the defence can prove otherwise - she didn't make any formal escalations or requests for process reviews/equipment reviews/tests etc at any point given the number of deaths she witnessed? That is really surprising to me. As a medical professional, surely you feel concern when the number of deaths in your care is increasing and you try and understand why.
Even without this case, I think her behaviour needed a reprimand. She was a senior nurse on that ward - experienced enough to know the risks of doing these things, and also knowing she needs to set an example for the junior nurses. In any other job, she would have been pulled up and her performance scrutinised and most other jobs don't involve the life and death of babies. I'm surprised she wasn't concerned how it would look on her own performance and record, particularly as she wasn't being very meticulous and things were slipping.
I know the prosecution spoke to her previous hospitals so it will be interesting to see if there was a change in her behaviour/performance that year. It does feel like she had either switched off from work to an extent, was disillusioned or thought she was beyond reproach.