Midwife 'falsified notes and withheld information' before Leeds baby's death, mum tells misconduct hearing

A grieving mother has accused one of her midwives of intentionally falsifying notes and withholding information that she says cost her baby daughter’s life and “destroyed our lives in the process”.

Fiona Winser-Ramm said her daughter Aliona’s death just 27 minutes after she was born at Leeds General Infirmary on 1 January 2020 has meant “there isn’t a part of my life that hasn’t been devastated or destroyed”.

Ms Winser-Ramm was giving evidence at the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s fitness to practice hearing into the conduct of two midwives - Ruksana Bibi and Yasmin Karolia - ahead of Aliona’s death.

She started her evidence with a statement emphasising the impact that Aliona’s death has had on her.

Ms Winser-Ramm showed a photo of “our perfect daughter” and held up the little hat she wore after she was born, which used to smell of her.

“I have had to hold my daughter’s cold body, I have had to beg for her to come back to life,” she told the midwives.

“This is not just a case that happened six years ago, this is our reality for every single day of our lives.”

The Leeds mother said that on December 30 2019 she called Ms Bibi after waking up in the early hours, worried that her waters had broken and Aliona was not as active as she had been previously.

She told the hearing she was “met with no concern, no suggestions about what it could be”.

Ms Winser-Ramm said she “felt like I had been making a fuss out of nothing, perhaps I was just being an overly concerned first time mother that was looking for problems that weren’t problems”.

She told the panel the medical notes that Ms Bibi had made on the call “were very different from what I remembered”.

Ms Winser-Ramm told the hearing this incorrectly stated that was not taking medication to deal with the pain, that she had been offered to come into hospital for an assessment, that the baby was active and that her waters had not broken.

Ms Winser-Ramm said the latter two points were the entire point of the phone call.

On January 1, Ms Winser-Ramm and her husband Dan were in Leeds General Infirmary for an induced labour appointment, and Ms Karolia was the second midwife to attend to them.

She said they initially raised a complaint about the midwife as she was “not interacting” with them.

Ms Winser-Ramm said: “The message that was continually relayed to us [was] everything was absolutely fine, there weren’t any concerns and this labour was progressing as any other labour should.”

She said the parents were not aware that Aliona’s heart rate was being continuously monitored by CTG [Cardiotocography], ahead of her death.

The hearing was told the baby’s medical records stated the Winser-Ramms were kept informed of the result of every CTG assessment by Ms Karolia, which was described as “absolutely not true”.

“It felt like Aliona had died again because it showed my notes had been intentionally falsified every 30 minutes,” Ms Winser-Ramm told the hearing.

“It showed to us we were totally denied any opportunity to attempt to safeguard our daughter.

“It showed these concerns were happening right under our nose … not only did they not act on these concerns, they lied and withheld these concerns from us.

“My daughter was knowingly left in serious distress for five-and-a-half hours of a 72-hour labour, and we know that if she had been delivered 10 minutes earlier she would have been alive.

“They sat on that information, they intently withheld that information, they allowed my daughter to be in distress and that ultimately ended up costing her her life and they destroyed our lives in the process.”

The midwife’s solicitor, Tope Adeyami, said at the hearing that Ms Karolia “does accept that she incorrectly documented the CTG reviews”.

Ms Adeyami added “she does accept that and she is extremely sorry for her actions”.

The hearing continues. Ms Bibi denies most of the charges against her, while Ms Karolia denies her actions were dishonest.