UK - Nurse Lucy Letby Faces 22 Charges - 7 Murder/15 Attempted Murder of Babies #3

[Marantz4250b]

But there was no norm as LL said because it was the only time she'd ever done it. She said it wasn't usual.

Also, there's a difference in sending a card if you get on well with the family and they like you vs if they are unhappy or not that close to you. A nurse doesn't get to decide she can send a sympathy card to a family - she needs to respect THEIR boundaries of what is acceptable.

She said that she got to know the family quite well, which was a rarity. If she knew them quite well then perhaps she also knew that they'd appreciate the card and whether it was acceptable to send or not?

 

[annpats]

The prosecution say the nurse's recollection is right, as Lucy Letby made a note at the end of her shift: Child I] noted to be pale in cot by myself at 03:20hrs … apnoea alarm in situ and had not sounded. On examination [Child I] centrally white, minimal shallow breaths followed by gasping observed.'

Recap: Prosecution opens trial of Lucy Letby accused of Countess of Chester Hospital baby murders

THE trial of former Countess of Chester Hospital nurse Lucy Letby, who is accused of multiple baby murders, is due to finalise its jury and hear…

www.chesterstandard.co.uk

I wonder why the apnoea alarm didn't sound? Had it been switched off, I wonder?

 

[Music2022]

12:42pm

Child K - attempted murder allegation
Child K was born at the Countess of Chester Hospital in February 2016, very premature, and weighing only 692g.
There was not time to deliver at a hospital for this type of maternity delivery care. Dr Ravi Jayaram, paediatric consultant, was present at her birth as a result.

Recap: Prosecution opens trial of Lucy Letby accused of Countess of Chester Hospital baby murders

THE trial of former Countess of Chester Hospital nurse Lucy Letby, who is accused of multiple baby murders, is due to finalise its jury and hear…

www.chesterstandard.co.uk

 

[elephantsomething]

But there was no norm as LL said because it was the only time she'd ever done it. She said it wasn't usual.

Also, there's a difference in sending a card if you get on well with the family and they like you vs if they are unhappy or not that close to you. A nurse doesn't get to decide she can send a sympathy card to a family - she needs to respect THEIR boundaries of what is acceptable.

I do not disagree at all, I'm just trying to ascertain if the "culture" in this hospital was for nurses to occasionally send sympathy cards to patients. I have previously worked in a care home and am aware of multiple occasions on which residents families were given a card or small gift from nurses. Obviously most nurses families will only experience once, so is there opinion on the interaction otherwise irrelevent?

 

[Music2022]

12:45pm

Lucy Letby booked Child K on to the neonatal unit. Child had required help with breathing, but was stable and in as good a condition as a baby of that prematurity could be.
Arrangements were made for Child K to transfer her to Arrowe Park Hospital.
At 3.50am, Dr Jayaram was standing at the nurses’ station compiling his notes. Although he did not have a view into Nursery 1, Dr Jayaram was aware the deisngated nurse was not there, a fact backed up by door swipe data. Lucy etby was the only nurse in room 1, alone with Child K.
"Feeling uncomfortable with this because he was beginning to notice the coincidence between the unexplained deaths and serious collapses and the presence of Lucy Letby, Dr Jayaram decided to check on where Lucy Letby was and where Child K was."

Recap: Prosecution opens trial of Lucy Letby accused of Countess of Chester Hospital baby murders

THE trial of former Countess of Chester Hospital nurse Lucy Letby, who is accused of multiple baby murders, is due to finalise its jury and hear…

www.chesterstandard.co.uk

 

[Music2022]

12:46pm

"As he walked in, he could see Letby standing over Child K's incubator. He could see Child K's oxygen levels were falling. However, the alarm was not sounding and Lucy Letby was making no effort to help.
"Dr Jayaram went straight to treat Child K and found her chest was not moving, he asked Letby if anything had happened to which she replied, “she’s just started deteriorating now”.

Recap: Prosecution opens trial of Lucy Letby accused of Countess of Chester Hospital baby murders

THE trial of former Countess of Chester Hospital nurse Lucy Letby, who is accused of multiple baby murders, is due to finalise its jury and hear…

www.chesterstandard.co.uk

 

[annpats]

I'm sure this has been asked before but LL had worked there since she qualified in 2011, working on the basis that all the charges are true, why start 2015?

There's so much that doesn't make sense including the clusters/gaps.

And when she did start in 2015, Child A, B, C and D were all killed within a space of 2 weeks, the 8th to 22nd June.

 

[Music2022]

12:48pm

Dr Jayaram found Child K's breathing tube had been dislodged.
Child K was very premature, and had been sedated and inactive. The tube had been secured by tape and attached to Child K's headgear.
Mr Johnson: "It's well recognised if you handle a child you can dislodge the tube accidentally, but any experienced staff member would recognise that.
"Dr Jayaram was troubled as the levels were falling and Nurse Letby had been the only person in the room."

Recap: Prosecution opens trial of Lucy Letby accused of Countess of Chester Hospital baby murders

THE trial of former Countess of Chester Hospital nurse Lucy Letby, who is accused of multiple baby murders, is due to finalise its jury and hear…

www.chesterstandard.co.uk

 

[merrypason]

She said that she got to know the family quite well, which was a rarity. If she knew them quite well then perhaps she also knew that they'd appreciate the card and whether it was acceptable to send or not?

We don't know they appreciated the card....all we know is they found her comments after their baby's death odd and upsetting enough to mention it to the police/prosecution. Until the parents say they were close to L, they got on well, they shared their address with her - it's all just LL's version of the truth.

There are rules about communication between health care professionals and patients. Again, this is a professional relationship. Not a normal friendship or acquaintanceship.

 

[Music2022]

12:52pm

The prosecution added: "On these monitors, all readings are set to default values in the neonatal unit.
"Saturation levels falling to the 80s, is a serious issue and if the machine is working properly, it would have an alarm if the saturation levels fell to the 80s, as Dr Jayaram noticed.
"There is an alarm pause button on the screen of the monitor - if you want to treat the child, you don't want the alarm going away. It will pause for one minute.
"Bearing in mind the rate displayed on the monitor, Dr Jayaram estimates the tube would have been dislodged between 30-60 seconds, and that is on the assumption the alarm had been cancelled once."
The court hears Dr Jayaram did not make a contemporaneous note of his suspicions or the alarm failing to activate.

12:56pm

Child K remained unwell and later died.
Medical expert Dr Dewi Evans viewed Lucy Letby’s failure to summon help as soon as possible was unusual.

12:57pm

The prosecution allege that Lucy letby was trying to kill Child K when Dr Jayaram walked in.

Recap: Prosecution opens trial of Lucy Letby accused of Countess of Chester Hospital baby murders

THE trial of former Countess of Chester Hospital nurse Lucy Letby, who is accused of multiple baby murders, is due to finalise its jury and hear…

www.chesterstandard.co.uk

 

[1345]

12:45pm

"Feeling uncomfortable with this because he was beginning to notice the coincidence between the unexplained deaths and serious collapses and the presence of Lucy Letby, Dr Jayaram decided to check on where Lucy Letby was and where Child K was."

The fact that he would make any link between a specific person and a pattern of problems is not good for LL, whether malice or incompetence, the fact that such a link would ever be made is not good.

 

[Music2022]

1:00pm

In police interview, when Dr Jayaram's account was put to her, she said no concerns had been raised at the time.
She said the alarm had not sounded. She said Child K was sedated and had not been moving around.
She also did not recall either any significant fall in saturations or there being no alarm. She accepted that in the circumstances described by Dr Jayaram she would have expected the alarm to have sounded.
she denied dislodging the tube and said she would have summoned help had Dr Jayaram not arrived, saying she was "possibly waiting to see if she self-corrected, we don’t normally intervene straight away if they weren’t dangerously low".
After the interviews - that suggestion made by Lucy Letby was referred to a nursing expert. Her view was that it was very unlikely that a nurse would leave the bedside of an intubated neonate unless they were very confident that the ET tube was correctly located and secure, the baby was inactive and then they would be away only briefly.
The nurse dismissed the idea that a competent nurse would have delayed intervention if there had been a desaturation.
Letby was found to have researched Child K's parents on Facebook in April 2018 - two years and two months after Child K had died. When asked about this, she said she did not recall doing so.

Recap: Prosecution opens trial of Lucy Letby accused of Countess of Chester Hospital baby murders

THE trial of former Countess of Chester Hospital nurse Lucy Letby, who is accused of multiple baby murders, is due to finalise its jury and hear…

www.chesterstandard.co.uk

 

[Marantz4250b]

We don't know they appreciated the card....all we know is they found her comments after their baby's death odd and upsetting enough to mention it to the police/prosecution. Until the parents say they were close to L, they got on well, they shared their address with her - it's all just LL's version of the truth.

There are rules about communication between health care professionals and patients. Again, this is a professional relationship. Not a normal friendship or acquaintanceship.

I didn't say they appreciated it. They may not have done. I said that LL apparently knew them well by this point and might have known that they would have appreciated the card. She may have been incorrect in thinking that though.

Also, nothing in the prosecution's statement seems to suggest that they found it "upsetting enough to mention it to the police". It may have been a simple statement of fact in response to the police's questions.

 

[Music2022]

She didn’t recall looking online for the parents of any of the babies? I find it hard to believe.

 

[Marantz4250b]

The fact that he would make any link between a specific person and a pattern of problems is not good for LL, whether malice or incompetence, the fact that such a link would ever be made is not good.

Agreed entirely. It raises questions of, if true, if a doctor genuinely had these suspicions then why wasn't she investigated if only from a professional competence point of view?

 

[cuecard]

She didn’t recall looking online for the parents of any of the babies? I find it hard to believe.

If it was just one search I could understand her forgetting but some of them she clearly repeatedly searched for - some over a period of months - and then some even years later. I find that difficult to believe also.

 

[Marantz4250b]

She didn’t recall looking online for the parents of any of the babies? I find it hard to believe.

Yes, this is starting to come over as extremely strange. Once again, though, it doesn't prove guilt either way.

 

[merrypason]

I didn't say they appreciated it. They may not have done. I said that LL apparently knew them well by this point and might have known that they would have appreciated the card. She may have been incorrect in thinking that though.

Also, nothing in the prosecution's statement seems to suggest that they found it "upsetting enough to mention it to the police". It may have been a simple statement of fact in response to the police's questions.

I doubt the police asked them to specifically state what she said when she first walked in on them. It would be a broader ask about their interactions with her post baby's death. The fact they did remember that comment and her expression/attitude all these years later show it was memorable. And upsetting because saying someone was 'smiling and kept going on about it' isn't normally a positive connotation in the aftermath of your child's death. While they were bathing their deceased child in fact.

the words of the mum, "was smiling and kept going on about how she was present at [Child I']s first bath and how much [Child I] had loved it.”

 

[annpats]

Letby was found to have researched Child K's parents on Facebook in April 2018 - two years and two months after Child K had died. When asked about this, she said she did not recall doing so.

Recap: Prosecution opens trial of Lucy Letby accused of Countess of Chester Hospital baby murders

THE trial of former Countess of Chester Hospital nurse Lucy Letby, who is accused of multiple baby murders, is due to finalise its jury and hear…

www.chesterstandard.co.uk

Not this again. I know it doesn't add to the proof of murder, but it's just not right.

Especially 2 years after the baby died!
You think you would have moved on with your nursing career and other patients and not even remembered the parents names by then.
But perhaps she had been logging them all down somewhere.

And then the usual 'she can't recall doing it' response. She's said that at least 3 times previously. Fine to say it for Facebook searches, but if you start saying it for more medical questions, it's going to look very strange. Either that or she has severe memory problems.

MOO.

 

[Tortoise]

Am I right in thinking that none of the babies mentioned so far were designated to LL's care?