UK - Nurse Lucy Letby Faces 22 Charges - 7 Murder/15 Attempted Murder of Babies #12

[Tortoise]

From the article you quoted from;

The Crown says Letby, from Hereford, attempted to murder the baby girl within two hours of her birth by deliberately dislodging her breathing tube during a night shift.

So what we know now is that the baby was not sedated which is the opposite of what was initially suggested; no one saw her actually do anything at all; there is no other associated evidence which directly ties her to the Crown's version of events.

How can anyone possibly be convicted on this "evidence"? There is literally no evidence other the coincidence, as far as I can see and in my opinion.

the ventilator not alarming when it was set to alarm.

 

[magikarpmagikarp]

Yes. And the alarm being paused already is another piece of information. With that said, assessment for chest rise doesn't take long, but it cannot be instantaneous. How long did it take Dr. J to assess that the chest wasn't moving when he entered the room? Did he identify that simultaneously with the baby's saturation falling into the 40s? Situations evolve. What is unclear at 10-15 seconds can be blazing obvious at 30 seconds.

I'm harping on this because it's super easy to "monday morning quarterback" a lot of situations, but making rapid assessments, decisions, and taking action in real time is not as easy as it looks. If he'd walked in when the saturation was in the 40s with LL doing nothing, I think I wouldn't have a doubt in my mind that she was just standing by. In the 80s... it's a bit of a grey area for me personally, like, not what I would do but doesn't stand out as absolutely incompetent or negligent. BUT it's possible that in CoC at that time, a sat in the 80s is not a grey area whatsoever and so if there's nurses from that unit (or from the NHS in general) that would say, "No, I would never have done that, no one does that, people who do that get disciplined," then to me that means a lot, it means that LL was acting outside of the unit standard at the time. (So the agreed statement means a lot to me.)

JMO

 

[Sweeper2000]

Do we know if the case of baby K has finished in court already or would it still be ongoin? Shame if it is as this case could be important.

 

[Dotta]

Ok I get the babies gestational age being an issue in ll not responding as per protocol but I am wondering how long a nurse would wait for a desat to correct itself for a baby of appropriate age and showing no other signs of deterioration?

would the babies heartbeat be an issue here as well? Just thinking if the baby hadn’t breathed in enough air or was not breathing at all we might see some other indication as to how long this baby had been in a compromised position for?

Brain cells are very sensitive to a lack of oxygen. Some brain cells start dying less than 5 minutes after their oxygen supply disappears. As a result, brain hypoxia can rapidly cause severe brain damage or death.

JmO

 

[Sweeper2000]

Brain cells are very sensitive to a lack of oxygen. Some brain cells start dying less than 5 minutes after their oxygen supply disappears. As a result, brain hypoxia can rapidly cause severe brain damage or death.

JmO

That’s assuming you have any and I have it on good authority that I have no more than thrice.

 

[Dotta]

"A nurse accused of multiple attacks on babies told police she may have been waiting to see if an infant “self-corrected” before intervening, a court heard."

https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2023-03-01/lucy-letby-may-have-been-waiting-for-baby-to-self-correct-trial-told

 

[GoodDayToYouSir]

the ventilator not alarming when it was set to alarm.

My issue with the alarms is that we have already had a nurse testify that a doctor admitted to her that he had turned the monitor off and not switched it back on in one of the other cases where the prosecution seemed to be implying that LL switched off. I question just how common it was for people to forget to switch the monitors on/back on.

 

[magikarpmagikarp]

My issue with the alarms is that we have already had a nurse testify that a doctor admitted to her that he had turned the monitor off and not switched it back on in one of the other cases where the prosecution seemed to be implying that LL switched off. I question just how common it was for people to forget to switch the monitors on/back on.

In that case I believe the monitor had been turned off completely. In this case the monitor was on but the alarm was paused. If it was paused, the person most likely to pause it would have been the first person at the bedside.

 

[magikarpmagikarp]

After thinking about this more and hearing that the court does not believe further testimony from Dr. Bohin or Dr. Evans would be useful at this point....based on the agreed statement provided by the court, I have to conclude that LL's behavior as described by Dr. J in his testimony, would not have been in accordance with accepted standards.

JMO

 

[Becci]

In that case I believe the monitor had been turned off completely. In this case the monitor was on but the alarm was paused. If it was paused, the person most likely to pause it would have been the first person at the bedside.

Hi can you tell by the monitor if there paused pls?

 

[Dotta]

...based on the agreed statement provided by the court, I have to conclude that LL was not acting in accordance with accepted standards.

To put it VERY mildly.
You should work in diplomacy haha

JMO

 

[magikarpmagikarp]

Hi can you tell by the monitor if there paused pls?

I don't know from their monitors but on ours there is a countdown that lets you know how long it was paused.

 

[Tortoise]

My issue with the alarms is that we have already had a nurse testify that a doctor admitted to her that he had turned the monitor off and not switched it back on in one of the other cases where the prosecution seemed to be implying that LL switched off. I question just how common it was for people to forget to switch the monitors on/back on.

The nurse's testimony was only one part of the evidence heard. It's a matter for the jury to decide, with all the evidence - not just the one selected witness - what happened the day that the nurse came upon LL behind a screen with an unmonitored baby G. There are also testimonies from the two doctors, the unit manager, and LL's phone messages in evidence for the jury's consideration.

Certainly it has not been established in court that people switched monitors off or forgot to switch monitors on.

MOO

 

[Jazmania]

My issue with the alarms is that we have already had a nurse testify that a doctor admitted to her that he had turned the monitor off and not switched it back on in one of the other cases where the prosecution seemed to be implying that LL switched off. I question just how common it was for people to forget to switch the monitors on/back on.

This (Child K's case) was different to that though, as the machine was connected and would have automatically alarmed unless it had been deliberately switched off

 

[ColourPurple]

O
OK, assuming you aren't pulling my leg!
Radiographer arrives with portable Xray machine.
Baby is left in the incubator. The nurse dons a lead apron. She/he puts hands through portholes and positions baby as described, trying not to extubate them in the process.
Radiographer does the Xray.
Voila!

When my neice had to have an xray as a baby she was literally put in a see through, plastic tube like Augustus Gloop in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory lol . This wasn't in the Uk though.

 

[Marantz4250b]

"Dr Jayaram says he was aware Joanne Williams was going to the labour ward to update the parents on Child K.
He said he was sitting at a desk, around the corner from the entrance to nursery room 1.

"I had not been called to review [Child K], I had not been called because alarms had gone off - I would have heard an alarm. I got up and walked through to see [Child K]."
Dr Jayaram entered nursery room 1 through the entrance doors closest to his desk. Child K was at the far side of the nursery room, with Lucy Letby present."

Recap: Lucy Letby trial, Tuesday, February 28

View attachment 406277

https://twitter.com/LucyLetbyTrial

So, he's presumably sitting at the desks which say "Nurses Station"?

How loud are these alarms? What else was happening in the area as regards noise? Were the doors closed? Has it been tested as to whether he, sat at that station, would have heard an alarm sounding through a wall, possibly with closed doors, and maybe 6 metres away?

So, unless we know whether would actually have heard an alarm we don't know for sure that it didn't sound and she paused it. His testimony is already that he was possibly hysterically pre-occupied with the conduct of LL so would that have caused him to miss an alarm if it did sound? He already harboured serious suspicions as to her so was he simply following some unconscious confirmation bias?

 

[Marantz4250b]

I assumed that his 'I am being hysterical' mindset was as a result of being told to stand down by senior management the first time (ie in October) then, after the Baby K incident, he repeated the concerns to senior management in February 2016.

Do we have specific information that he had already repeated his concerns before Baby K incident?

It may be was but he stated in his evidence quite clearly that he went into that room because he thought he may be getting hysterical about her conduct. That in my opinion from reading his evidence is not him starting from an impartial point of view and certainly a point at which he may not have been correctly recalling matters.

Again, all in my totally unqualified opinion and based on what has been reported.

 

[ColourPurple]

I have questions as to why many years after the events involving child K he can remember them in extreme, to-the-minute detail yet didn't say these things in his initial police interviews. That from LL's barrister not me. Also, his assertions that he went into the room to check on LL to allay his own fears that he wasn't "being hysterical" about his concerns around her, do not seem to fit with the fact that he and other consultants had already made their minds up about her and had raised concerns. He must have been well past the "am I being irrational" state of mind by then, imo.

And if we assume he is telling the truth then what is your opinion of what LL was doing?

 

[Marantz4250b]

It seems that by this stage the clinicians had formed an awareness not simply of the person who always seemed to be 'around' when these events were happening, but also that the nature of the events themselves formed part of that pattern.

As a layman, I am finding it hard thought process to access, because I don't have that on-the-ground experience of what would be 'normal' or 'expected' on a NICU, which is by its very nature, a life or death frontline type of environment.

So, so, so difficult for the non-medical jury.

Indeed. I have long thought there are good reasons for having specifically qualified juries for cases involving highy complicated and technical matters such as medical or fraud cases. At the very least to have a few experts on said juries.

 

[Marantz4250b]

I think the doctors are all essentially saying one thing - these events, sudden collapses, were unexpected.

JMO

That word "unexpected" has been used a great deal since she was first arrested. I'm really not sure what weight to attribute to it, though.

Isn't any death or collapse in any person who is not terminally ill or has serious underlying health conditions "unexpected"? They happen every day, though.

After all, there were many more which were referred to the independent experts which were attributed as being explainable with no nefarious cause so they do happen, even at this hospital and in this unit!