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

[Tortoise]

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!

if they were explainable they were not unexpected.

I would take "unexpected" at its usual meaning.

There were no signs it would happen before it happened, according to their testimonies. IMO

 

[Marantz4250b]

the ventilator not alarming when it was set to alarm.

We don't know it didn't alarm. Dr J says he didn't hear it but we don't know whether he could have done or not or whether he did and simply didn't register it.

Neither do we know whether LL saw a situation approaching and pre-paused it or whether paused it very quickly intending to attend to the baby at the point Dr J walked in.

What I have issues with is evidence from someone who already was pre-disposed to holding a negative opinion of the defendant and was self-admittedly questioning whether he was being irrational, being used to convict someone of attempted murder.

All MOO, obvs.

 

[Tortoise]

We don't know it didn't alarm. Dr J says he didn't hear it but we don't know whether he could have done or not or whether he did and simply didn't register it.

Neither do we know whether LL saw a situation approaching and pre-paused it or whether paused it very quickly intending to attend to the baby at the point Dr J walked in.

What I have issues with is evidence from someone who already was pre-disposed to holding a negative opinion of the defendant and was self-admittedly questioning whether he was being irrational, being used to convict someone of attempted murder.

All MOO, obvs.

His evidence was "I would have heard an alarm"

He knows the unit, and therefore he knows what he would or would not have been able to hear.

He was alert to the fact that LL was alone with the baby, which IMO means he was very aware of his surroundings.

MOO

 

[Anxala]

We don't know the full details of the reporting Dr J and colleagues did or didn't do yet, just that concerns were raised. I'm interested to see what is actually documented vs what Dr J and colleagues recall.

Didn't Ben Meyers say there was no documentation? I queried this yesterday because what BM said was in direct conflict with what DrJ said. The latter used the term 'documented more'. If it had been documented at all, then surely it would have provided to court as evidence of DrJ's claim?

From Tortoise's court report yesterday:

Dr Jayaram said it should have been documented throughout more. He says he discussed the incident, but did not formally document it.

Mr Myers says there is no record anywhere of the suspicious behaviour noted.

Which implies that it wasn't documented in any formal way that could be produced as evidence, be that notes, letters, emails, recordings of tel calls made etc.

 

[WaxLyrical]

So just trying to get my head around what is being alleged here: LL dislodged the tube, waited for the saturations to drop to 90%, then immediately silenced the alarm as soon as it went off?

Does anyone know how quickly you can pause the alarm? Can you do it fast enough so that it will not make a sound? Or would there still be an initial audible alert?

 

[Tortoise]

So just trying to get my head around what is being alleged here: LL dislodged the tube, waited for the saturations to drop to 90%, then immediately silenced the alarm as soon as it went off?

Does anyone know how quickly you can pause the alarm? Can you do it fast enough so that it will not make a sound? Or would there still be an initial audible alert?

yesterday's testimony

"Ms Williams says she cannot recall if the alarm could be disabled in advance. The court hears a newer version of the monitors have since been installed in the hospital, where that is possible."

Recap: Lucy Letby trial, Tuesday, February 28

 

[marynnu]

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.

Are you sure that wasn't a scan? ;(

 

[WaxLyrical]

yesterday's testimony

"Ms Williams says she cannot recall if the alarm could be disabled in advance. The court hears a newer version of the monitors have since been installed in the hospital, where that is possible."

Recap: Lucy Letby trial, Tuesday, February 28

Hmm, thank you, hopefully they’ll be able to clarify this with certainty.

 

[WaxLyrical]

Are you sure that wasn't a scan? ;(

It’s the pigg-o-stat, i mentioned it earlier. Now I can’t unsee Augustus Gloop

 

[ColourPurple]

Are you sure that wasn't a scan? ;(

Definitely a chest Xray. She had bronchilitis. I've googled baby tube xray and found it's called a pigg-o-stat that somebody actually mentioned earlier, but I didn't click that they were talking about the same thing, as I had no idea it was called that lol

This is it:

This is the unusual way that babies can be kept still during X-rays

Pictures of babies inside a Pigg-O-Stat which keeps them still during X-rays have amused dozens of Twitter users. The device originally came from the US, but the NHS does not routinely use it any longer.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[Tortoise]

Hmm, thank you, hopefully they’ll be able to clarify this with certainty.

Perhaps it's not possible, years later, to go back and find out which model of ventilator she was on? I don't know if they would have had more than one type.

 

[marynnu]

Definitely a chest Xray. She had bronchilitis. I've googled baby tube xray and found it's called a pigg-o-stat that somebody actually mentioned earlier, but I didn't click that they were talking about the same thing, as I had no idea it was called that lol

This is it:

This is the unusual way that babies can be kept still during X-rays

Pictures of babies inside a Pigg-O-Stat which keeps them still during X-rays have amused dozens of Twitter users. The device originally came from the US, but the NHS does not routinely use it any longer.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Well, that's a name & a half! You couldn't do this with a little prem, but interesting nonetheless.

 

[marynnu]

Perhaps it's not possible, years later, to go back and find out which model of ventilator she was on? I don't know if they would have had more than one type.

I think the alarms in this context relate to the monitor rather than the ventilator.
IMO there is one way you could disable an alarm in advance even with machines that don't allow it, namely by lowering the alarm limit.

 

[Tortoise]

I think the alarms in this context relate to the monitor rather than the ventilator.
IMO there is one way you could disable an alarm in advance even with machines that don't allow it, namely by lowering the alarm limit.

I wasn't sure, I was only going by the testimony that was reported, perhaps it's inaccurate reporting

"He said: "I saw Lucy Letby standing by the incubator. I saw her, and looked up at the monitor, and K's saturations were dropping, in the 80s and continued to drop. The ventilator was not giving out an alarm."

"Mr Myers says the alarm on the ventilator was not alarming, according to Dr Jayaram."

Recap: Lucy Letby trial, Tuesday, February 28

 

[JosieJo]

Likewise may not be much documentation if the consultants in hindsight aren't recalling it accurately.

Jmo ... but to stand in public court and say you told the nurse director and medical director you would have to pretty sure you did

 

[Dotta]

"Doctors warned hospital bosses that nurse Lucy Letby could be harming premature babies at least eight months before she was removed from work, murder trial hears."​

Doctors warned Lucy Letby 'harming babies 8 months before removal'

Doctors warned hospital bosses that nurse Lucy Letby (pictured) could be harming premature babies at least eight months before she was removed from work, a court heard yesterday.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[ColourPurple]

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?

As there are no charges from November 2015 until Baby K in February 2016, it would make sense that the February report to senio managment was in response to Baby K, but we haven't been given the exact date in Feb that the concerns were repeated to be able to fully confirm.

 

[JosieJo]

I don't think anyone disagrees that management should have done more and sooner. Personally, it's them that I feel are accountable more so than the group of consultants who actually reported it to them. The fact a lot of senior staff left their roles around the time of the first arrest speaks volumes. And IF LL is found guilty, there should be consequences for all concerned IMO.

Exactly..the Medical Director was also Deputy CEO at the time ...he gave press interviews in the early stages of the investigation....BUT .. retired in 2018

 

[Anxala]

Jmo ... but to stand in public court and say you told the nurse director and medical director you would have to pretty sure you did

Oh I'm absolutely sure he did and I think we need to take his word on this and stop doubting and side-eyeing him, and not just because he was under oath. As you say, he's named people. That's good enough for me.

Where he may have been a little economical with the actualité is in his claim that physical documentation exists, implied by his 'should have been documented throughout more'.

My conclusion - and JMO of course - is that any/all reporting that was done at the time took the form of person to person discussion and tel calls only, hence why no 'physical' record can be produced as evidence.

 

[JosieJo]

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.

I feel this is not their strongest case ..I feel they are relying on her not doing anything and no alarm sounding when the baby was not breathing (allegedly)