UK - Nurse Lucy Letby, murder of babies, 7 Guilty of murder verdicts; 8 Guilty of attempted murder; 2 Not Guilty of attempted; 5 hung re attempted #37

[Ruthbullock]

Interesting to see some of the babies listed are still under investigation by police

3. Two of the deaths that occurred on a Neonatal Unit (either at the Countess o f Chester Hospital or other Hospital Neonatal Units post transfer) remain the subject of ongoing police investigation.

The part in brackets is suggestive that one of those was transferred and one not transferred- otherwise there was no need for that section.

I am not sure why, but I thought there were more than just 2 still being investigated, although I suppose there would be no reason to include those prior to LL transferring from Liverpool which may still be under investigation, but is it also suggestive that none prior to Child A from the COCH are being investigated?

 

[Ruthbullock]

7 out of 18 deaths were attributed to LL, that still leaves 11, with 2 currently being investigated (let’s assume for a moment LL or someone else is also later charged with them), which then leaves 9 (8 if we exclude child K)– is this not still a higher than expected figure?
Previous years had 2 or 3 over 12 months

I know I pick apart the contradictions between Thirlwall and the trial reporting- but I’m also IMO sure there is something more that occurred, that even now we are not getting to the bottom of because people are drowning out the questions about the doctors and the consultants and their roles by arguing that everyone who suggests that is also arguing for LL’s innocence and the two can’t have occurred together.

Sadly this does not form part of the inquiry as it’s focused solely around LL, but to me that is an injustice to all the other parents who haven’t had their children’s deaths examined.

It is in many ways just a personal moan, but this inquiry could have been so much more impactful than I fear it’s going to end up being which will be a damp squid with a few minor recommendations about safeguarding/whistleblowing improvements that will subsequently be ignored (as were the recommendations and report at the start of 2015 ).
Number of deaths:

https://thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk/wp-content/uploads/thirlwall-evidence/INQ0002837_01-07.pdf

Table of children:

https://thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk/wp-content/uploads/thirlwall-evidence/INQ0108782.pdf

ETA- slightly controversial- but we criticise the management for excluding things and being blinkered in their judgements- it is possible both LL’s whistleblowing and the doctors whistleblowing were correct in their assertions. Neither should have cancelled out the other.

 

[Charlot123]

I AM sure she's guilty, beyond reasonable doubt. For many many reasons. Off the top of my head, here are a few of them. She's a pathological liar and manipulator, obsessed with the NNU patients and not in a good way. Evidenced by thousands of manipulative and gaslighting messages about them. The pattern of collapses followed her work pattern, too many times for coincidence. There was NO alternative explanation for collapses, searched for tirelessly by the real experts who treated them and knew their all too short histories. There was NO evidence of scapegoating. The doctors were the ones who kept trying to investigate and report the collapses, and were silenced by the execs covering up and silencing any alarms. Dozens if doctors treated those babies, did they all manage to hatch a plan to frame one random nurse? Very clever if so, seeing how incapable they're meant to be. There is no valid question mark over the insulin. As explained in full at the Inquiry. An engineer without clinical knowledge is the person now questioning it and he has no credibility. As will be the CCRC opinion. She stood in the dock and lied, evaded and obfuscated for 15 hours. Her straight answers were noteworthy for their rarity. She even accused parents of lying. That time zone argument is total fiction, they were plenty of witnesses. No innocent person needs to dodge and weave and calculate their way through questioning - that they've had 7-8 years to prepare for.

That's just the tip of a massive iceberg. A 5 year investigation and counting, 2 trials, 3 appeals, 5000 pages of evidence at first trial, 246 witnesses. And further imminent charges against her.

And the actual targets weren't the babies, they were primarily their parents.

She's guilty. Many more than 15 times.

Bring on the CCRC and CofA, cannot wait.

Maybe we should stop projecting our personal feelings on a person we don’t know? Words like “a liar”, “a manipulator” “a narcissist” or “gaslighting” became as commonplace as a breakfast napkin and essentially, meaningless.

Otherwise I shall start offering my opinions of the doctors accusing her. Given that the main consultant is obviously sadistically proud of how many people he helped accuse in his career, and we have to review the circumstances of why he chose to stop practicing 15 years ago. A once-TV doctor looks obviously scared now and the head of the unit, obtuse. But it is JMO. I am sure that of the three, Dr. Breary was chronically overworked.

 

[Charlot123]

7 out of 18 deaths were attributed to LL, that still leaves 11, with 2 currently being investigated (let’s assume for a moment LL or someone else is also later charged with them), which then leaves 9 (8 if we exclude child K)– is this not still a higher than expected figure?
Previous years had 2 or 3 over 12 months

I know I pick apart the contradictions between Thirlwall and the trial reporting- but I’m also IMO sure there is something more that occurred, that even now we are not getting to the bottom of because people are drowning out the questions about the doctors and the consultants and their roles by arguing that everyone who suggests that is also arguing for LL’s innocence and the two can’t have occurred together.

Sadly this does not form part of the inquiry as it’s focused solely around LL, but to me that is an injustice to all the other parents who haven’t had their children’s deaths examined.

It is in many ways just a personal moan, but this inquiry could have been so much more impactful than I fear it’s going to end up being which will be a damp squid with a few minor recommendations about safeguarding/whistleblowing improvements that will subsequently be ignored (as were the recommendations and report at the start of 2015 ).
Number of deaths:

https://thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk/wp-content/uploads/thirlwall-evidence/INQ0002837_01-07.pdf

Table of children:

https://thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk/wp-content/uploads/thirlwall-evidence/INQ0108782.pdf

ETA- slightly controversial- but we criticise the management for excluding things and being blinkered in their judgements- it is possible both LL’s whistleblowing and the doctors whistleblowing were correct in their assertions. Neither should have cancelled out the other.

But that’s the thing. There is police to call.
They are doctors. If they have concerns, even about three cases, they have to stop it.

I have very little time to watch YouTube show detailing each case, medically, but I am. I know that humans are gullible. We live in a society where we should learn reason, and yet…well-known doctors publish books about cats predicting deaths; TV persons put “seers” into PET scanners to check their brain activity, etc. I am a skeptic and my main goal is to be sure that we don’t have a modern Salem witch trial here. That NICU “chart” linking LL to deaths was statistically analyzed. That each case was offered alternative reasons except for “murder”. I can’t imagine a hospital where every morning there shouldn’t be a morning round with a consultant and the registrars. This is how you teach; not by overburdening yesterday’s students. And if the hospital has no money to cover all hours by a consultant, it borders on criminal to assign the NICU unit Level 2. JMO.

 

[marynnu]

7 out of 18 deaths were attributed to LL, that still leaves 11, with 2 currently being investigated (let’s assume for a moment LL or someone else is also later charged with them), which then leaves 9 (8 if we exclude child K)– is this not still a higher than expected figure?
Previous years had 2 or 3 over 12 months

I know I pick apart the contradictions between Thirlwall and the trial reporting- but I’m also IMO sure there is something more that occurred, that even now we are not getting to the bottom of because people are drowning out the questions about the doctors and the consultants and their roles by arguing that everyone who suggests that is also arguing for LL’s innocence and the two can’t have occurred together.

Sadly this does not form part of the inquiry as it’s focused solely around LL, but to me that is an injustice to all the other parents who haven’t had their children’s deaths examined.

It is in many ways just a personal moan, but this inquiry could have been so much more impactful than I fear it’s going to end up being which will be a damp squid with a few minor recommendations about safeguarding/whistleblowing improvements that will subsequently be ignored (as were the recommendations and report at the start of 2015 ).
Number of deaths:

https://thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk/wp-content/uploads/thirlwall-evidence/INQ0002837_01-07.pdf

Table of children:

https://thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk/wp-content/uploads/thirlwall-evidence/INQ0108782.pdf

ETA- slightly controversial- but we criticise the management for excluding things and being blinkered in their judgements- it is possible both LL’s whistleblowing and the doctors whistleblowing were correct in their assertions. Neither should have cancelled out the other.

There were 17 deaths attributed to CoC, but 4 took place elsewhere. So 6 for which she was not charged with murder. As I understand it, these had explanations - birth asphyxia, congenital abnormalities & overwhelming infection. Which doesn't necessarily mean they died of natural causes, but let's say they did. Either way, she was present for 11/12 of the 13 deaths, I forget which.

 

[Ruthbullock]

There were 17 deaths attributed to CoC, but 4 took place elsewhere. So 6 for which she was not charged with murder. As I understand it, these had explanations - birth asphyxia, congenital abnormalities & overwhelming infection. Which doesn't necessarily mean they died of natural causes, but let's say they did. Either way, she was present for 11/12 of the 13 deaths, I forget which.

But for arguments sake as people on this thread like to rely solely on the jury’s verdicts- that leaves the hospital themselves including those with transfers (following transfers they have attempted for the purpose of the investigation and inquiry to attribute them to the COCH hospital and LL) there was still a significant uptick in neonatal deaths for reasons other then LL. 3 of the 18 on the chart had significant issues that caused death, but we can’t discount those 3 in the average for previous years as I’m sure that happened on an at least annual basis.
You could argue that we ignore those 3 and say that is the normal expectation and is the usual cause of death on a neonatal unit and they are the causes annually. This then resets the average per year previously to 0- so we still have 5 or 6 deaths exceeding the normal expectations.

 

[Charlot123]

So you have made a claim that "2 ward rounds per week" is somehow partly to blame for deaths. It has now been clearly explained to you in detail how units in the NHS operate and how this is basically normal. Your reply is to then disregard all this information and move onto the claim made by Dr Lee that the hospital would be shut down. Is his word the be all and end all?

The fact is that lots of babies died because a nurse murdered them. Or do you think Dr Lee thinks that the unit should have been shut down because of "2 ward rounds per week"

Its all just a load of rubbish really. A bit like that Dr Taylor in the first press conference making the outlandish claim that a Dr caused the death of a baby and he wouldn't be able to sleep at night if it was him. Sensationalist rubbish, intended to grab attention and lure people into this narrative that makes no sense whatsoever

JMO

Your statements didn’t come from me.

So respectfully, why don’t you drop “you have made a claim”? It is a forum, after all.

What I am saying is that there ought to have been a reason for the mom of babies A and B to move by week 32 and give births for the babies in another hospital. COCH was ill-equipped for such babies. Well, fate has declared otherwise. But the fact that two difficult preemies were not seen by the consultants neither after birth nor for the whole day is shocking. Who is present at their birth? A NICU nurse and a registrar (both must feel horribly now and I feel sorry for them).

If COCH could not provide adequate care, they should have moved the infants and perhaps mom to a better equipped hospital immediately after birth. If you as a consultant know that you have heavy-duty NICU patients and can’t drag yourself to your NICU for the next day, then your duty is to transfer them to where they were intended to be born. A specialized hospital.

Lastly, do Liverpool Women’s Hospital or Alder Hey Children’s hospital operate along the same principle, when consultant neonatologists show up only twice a week? Or is there a difference?

 

[Ruthbullock]

Your statements didn’t come from me.

So respectfully, why don’t you drop “you have made a claim”? It is a forum, after all.

What I am saying is that there ought to have been a reason for the mom of babies A and B to move by week 32 and give births for the babies in another hospital. COCH was ill-equipped for such babies. Well, fate has declared otherwise. But the fact that two difficult preemies were not seen by the consultants neither after birth nor for the whole day is shocking. Who is present at their birth? A NICU nurse and a registrar (both must feel horribly now and I feel sorry for them).

If COCH could not provide adequate care, they should have moved the infants and perhaps mom to a better equipped hospital immediately after birth. If you as a consultant know that you have heavy-duty NICU patients and can’t drag yourself to your NICU for the next day, then your duty is to transfer them to where they were intended to be born. A specialized hospital.

Lastly, do Liverpool Women’s Hospital or Alder Hey Children’s hospital operate along the same principle, when consultant neonatologists show up only twice a week? Or is there a difference?

Both of those hospitals will have consultants based within them. They are large hospitals that serve a wide geographical area. The COCH was a smaller regional offspring hospital.

For context I was recently in an ICU within an offspring hospital for a different reason, but the consultants travelled daily from the 2 other larger hospitals and whilst it was a different consultant daily (sometimes 2 or 3 attended together if the unit was busy, it had 7 beds), they were on site all day and on call for evenings and weekends (although rarely attended when called out of hours, tended to advise). I was told I was not stable enough to be transferred, although if they could have done, they would have preferred to do so as there was always 24 hour/7 days a week consultants available at the larger hospitals.

 

[marynnu]

But for arguments sake as people on this thread like to rely solely on the jury’s verdicts- that leaves the hospital themselves including those with transfers (following transfers they have attempted for the purpose of the investigation and inquiry to attribute them to the COCH hospital and LL) there was still a significant uptick in neonatal deaths for reasons other then LL. 3 of the 18 on the chart had significant issues that caused death, but we can’t discount those 3 in the average for previous years as I’m sure that happened on an at least annual basis.
You could argue that we ignore those 3 and say that is the normal expectation and is the usual cause of death on a neonatal unit and they are the causes annually. This then resets the average per year previously to 0- so we still have 5 or 6 deaths exceeding the normal expectations.

I believe the police are investigating more cases, so who knows. Or it might be an actual unavoidable spike. But the remainder aren't relevant anyway, are they?

 

[marynnu]

Your statements didn’t come from me.

So respectfully, why don’t you drop “you have made a claim”? It is a forum, after all.

What I am saying is that there ought to have been a reason for the mom of babies A and B to move by week 32 and give births for the babies in another hospital. COCH was ill-equipped for such babies. Well, fate has declared otherwise. But the fact that two difficult preemies were not seen by the consultants neither after birth nor for the whole day is shocking. Who is present at their birth? A NICU nurse and a registrar (both must feel horribly now and I feel sorry for them).

If COCH could not provide adequate care, they should have moved the infants and perhaps mom to a better equipped hospital immediately after birth. If you as a consultant know that you have heavy-duty NICU patients and can’t drag yourself to your NICU for the next day, then your duty is to transfer them to where they were intended to be born. A specialized hospital.

Lastly, do Liverpool Women’s Hospital or Alder Hey Children’s hospital operate along the same principle, when consultant neonatologists show up only twice a week? Or is there a difference?

i think you're getting a bit het up about 32-weekers.

 

[Ruthbullock]

I believe the police are investigating more cases, so who knows. Or it might be an actual unavoidable spike. But the remainder aren't relevant anyway, are they?

That was my original question in my original post- I thought there was more, but perhaps not. It was a question I also asked.
With regards the other deaths, they are relevant IMO in the respect we need answers and sufficient investigation into all of the deaths. I can remember before the trial it was suggested that LL did what she did to highlight the doctors and consultants poor work- I’m simplifying the discussions over it and wording it very coldly- but it still sticks in my head. Alongside the fact that all things can be true without proper investigation- LL was committing murders, the doctors didn’t act properly or professionally, the senior management didn’t act effectively and there was poor standards of care and hygiene occurring throughout the unit.

 

[Charlot123]

Thank you! I knew someone here would have better information. Well, let me slightly modify my previous statement in light of this correction.

31 weeks is less robust than 34 weeks, but you would not expect rapid and significant dehydration in that time period, not to the point of circulatory collapse, and not to the point of being unresponsive to full resuscitation measures which include treatment for decreased circulating volume.

There would have been risk of hypoglycemia. In the trial, we heard nursing notes describing Baby A as being jittery around 8pm. These were Letby's notes, not Mel Taylor's. If Letby was truthful, and she may have been, jitters suggest hypoglycemia. It also suggests that the baby was awake and moving around at 8pm! This is at odds with the idea that the delay in fluids caused the collapse. Resuscitation measures also include giving doses of dextrose to correct low blood sugar.

If lack of fluids caused collapse, the resuscitation should have treated the cause.

I would expect urgency around obtaining IV access for this baby. This would be to avoid the negative effects of prolonged hypoglycemia on the brain, which can show up in the school years. We also want to provide ready supply of nutrition to keep the baby in a growing state after delivery. This improves future growth, which affects all parts of the body, and leads to more normal brain development.

31 week is very young but I have to look. I read, 29.5 weeks. But later. We’ll get to it.

To start, ”Robust” doesn’t apply to anyone in ICU, much less to a tiny preemie. So I seriously doubt that such a preemie could easily survive dehydration. And yes, dextrose would be better, but at least is an open IV access with at least normal saline too much to ask for?

Yes, maybe too much. Difficult birth and all. And maybe even a consultant couldn’t have been able to establish it, doctors are not gods. But the only way out I see is emergency transfer to another unit, better equipped for such a baby. Not leaving him on registrars who are in training and nurses.

 

[Charlot123]

i think you're getting a bit het up about 32-weekers.

Me? Not really, we were fine. With my second pregnancy, I was dilated at 29 weeks and my best of the best OBGYN in a huge, well-equipped hospital in Seattle begged me to carry to 32 weeks. “We have no problem saving them after that”, he said. I carried to 37. We didn’t need NICU at all.

But, 32 weeks is a certain point. This is how they divide levels of care in NICUs after all. Google levels of NICU.

 

[magikarpmagikarp]

You didn’t need to rewrite your post . I shared it as it’s a useful overview which I have actually found hard to find previously with an accurate overview of times, dates outcomes etc in one place.

Can't help myself you know

 

[magikarpmagikarp]

31 week is very young but I have to look. I read, 29.5 weeks. But later. We’ll get to it.

To start, ”Robust” doesn’t apply to anyone in ICU, much less to a tiny preemie. So I seriously doubt that such a preemie could easily survive dehydration. And yes, dextrose would be better, but at least is an open IV access with at least normal saline too much to ask for?

Yes, maybe too much. Difficult birth and all. And maybe even a consultant couldn’t have been able to establish it, doctors are not gods. But the only way out I see is emergency transfer to another unit, better equipped for such a baby. Not leaving him on registrars who are in training and nurses.

I don't agree that 4 hours off IV fluids should be enough to cause a collapse like what Baby A suffered. However let's say you are correct.

Let's pretend Baby A collapsed due to dehydration. If that were the case - and I do not think it was because there doesn't seem to be evidence of that claim -

I would expect a different situation. A collapse with successful resuscitation within 10-20 minutes, need for dopamine or other pressors for a couple days after, signs of acute kidney injury, intubation for a week or more, ongoing sequelae, perhaps a brain bleed, a much prolonged time to discharge compared to the twin who did not require such extensive resuscitation and down the road developmental delays compared to the sibling. That's what the clinical course might have looked like. That's what being fragile means.

I agree that a unit ill equipped to manage an infant should seek a transfer but transfers take time and there are criteria for acceptance by the receiving hospital. We don't know that this situation - difficulty with access for 4 hours- actually would have met the criteria. I doubt it. Receiving hospitals cannot accept every baby sending hospitals want them to take or they would not have beds for the infants who truly cannot be managed anywhere else.

 

[Parker Knoll]

They could provide perfectly proper care but that care was sabotaged by Letby.

 

[Highlandspring]

Maybe we should stop projecting our personal feelings on a person we don’t know? Words like “a liar”, “a manipulator” “a narcissist” or “gaslighting” became as commonplace as a breakfast napkin and essentially, meaningless.

Otherwise I shall start offering my opinions of the doctors accusing her. Given that the main consultant is obviously sadistically proud of how many people he helped accuse in his career, and we have to review the circumstances of why he chose to stop practicing 15 years ago. A once-TV doctor looks obviously scared now and the head of the unit, obtuse. But it is JMO. I am sure that of the three, Dr. Breary was chronically overworked.

Personal feelings? It is proven in a court of law she is a liar. I don't need to remind you about what I'm sure, there are too many to remember. Her lies were proven, as required by a UK court, via documentary evidence (false/altered nursing notes, her messages, handover sheets, digital searches), other witness testimonies (most of the 246 witnesses including expert witnesses), and other evidence, like telling a doctor that a mother had commented on a baby not looking as good as before, and that mother saying she never said that, major discrepancies between what she told eg police interviewers and the jury. Her defence was that she was scapegoated and was a victim of a campaign. And yet, when she was asked countless times to specify what the 'gang of four' had done, she offered barely anything specific. Because she was lying about this campaign. And the obvious lie about how she was isolated and banned from seeing colleagues when she actually socialised with them regularly. And the relatively more minor 'go commando' comment and the infamous Lee Cooper leisure suit. The jury is directed that lies can be considered evidence if they think the lie is deliberate and related to a specific issue. It is fact that the jury mostly believed other witnesses over her and considered her lies deliberate and related to specific issues. Her whole time on the stand was spent desperately trying to use generalities, avoid a question, be deliberately obtuse, answer a different question obfuscate and lie. If she hadn't done any of that, and was a credible witness giving straight answers, the jury may have spent even longer deliberating. Her pathological lying (or shall I say perjury?) was a significant support for the verdicts. People are given the Miranda warning for a reason.

No doctor was proven to have lied, as far as I know. Dr Jayaram was believed over her in her trial for Baby K. Anyway, none of them are sitting in a jail cell and never will be. Dr U, I suppose, could face charges of some kind, maybe civil ones.

 

[Parker Knoll]

But that’s the thing. There is police to call.
They are doctors. If they have concerns, even about three cases, they have to stop it.

I have very little time to watch YouTube show detailing each case, medically, but I am. I know that humans are gullible. We live in a society where we should learn reason, and yet…well-known doctors publish books about cats predicting deaths; TV persons put “seers” into PET scanners to check their brain activity, etc. I am a skeptic and my main goal is to be sure that we don’t have a modern Salem witch trial here. That NICU “chart” linking LL to deaths was statistically analyzed. That each case was offered alternative reasons except for “murder”. I can’t imagine a hospital where every morning there shouldn’t be a morning round with a consultant and the registrars. This is how you teach; not by overburdening yesterday’s students. And if the hospital has no money to cover all hours by a consultant, it borders on criminal to assign the NICU unit Level 2. JMO.

The “ chart “ iirc was mentioned in court once or twice only as an exhibit.
It was produced by the prosecution and disclosed to the defence so they would know it would be shown as a visual aid to the jury simply to show when letby was on shift/ babies died.
There was nothing more to it than that.
It was a factual document that the defence could and did challenge in court.
One cannot escape the facts of that chart, it wasn’t a “ witch hunt “ it was the staff rota

 

[Sweeper2000]

damp squid lol lets not put letby on a pedal stool. she may indeed be a escape goat. however she is indeed too cool, calm and collective and all the glitters is not gold.

 

[marynnu]

Me? Not really, we were fine. With my second pregnancy, I was dilated at 29 weeks and my best of the best OBGYN in a huge, well-equipped hospital in Seattle begged me to carry to 32 weeks. “We have no problem saving them after that”, he said. I carried to 37. We didn’t need NICU at all.

But, 32 weeks is a certain point. This is how they divide levels of care in NICUs after all. Google levels of NICU.

I don't need to google levels.