Probe into mum’s death
Health chiefs have ordered a probe into the death of a Magherafelt woman just hours after she gave birth at Antrim Area Hospital.
By Patricia Devlin
Info@derrypost.com
Janet Brown died at the County Antrim based hospital in September 2006 after giving birth to a baby boy.
A pathologist’s report later found that the 28-year-old died as a result of ‘morphine intoxication’; she had received too much morphine.
Bosses at the Northern Health and Social Care Trust confirmed this week they have ordered an ‘independent enquiry’ into Mrs Brown’s death.
Speaking exclusively to the County Derry Post the dead woman’s brother, Arnold Scott, blasted chiefs at Antrim Area hospital.
“Antrim Area hospital are solely to blame for Janet’s death,” he said. “They simply cannot cope with their workload and people are dying as a result.”
The Magherafelt man branded the hospital ‘unfit’ and ‘improperly staffed’ after another young mother, Joanne Moore, died there after giving birth a year after Mrs Brown’s death.
“Antrim is the new modern hospital, you go in and you don’t get care,” he said. “At the time of Janet’s death we were told directly by the hospital that a morphine overdose was impossible. But it wasn’t impossible, we were just fed lies, lies and more lies.
“But all the blame in the world won’t bring Janet back but I do hope that her death will not be in vain. I only hope that by highlighting her death and that of Mrs Moore’s at least one person’s life will be saved in the future.”
Mrs Brown attended Antrim Area Hospital’s maternity unit on the September 12, 2006, to have her third child when complications arose during labour.
A caesarean section was carried out and at 4.07pm the young mother gave birth to a healthy baby boy and returned to the main maternity ward.
Shortly after midnight, hospital staff discovered the mother of three was dead.
A spokeswoman for the Northern Health and Social Care Trust said: “The Department cannot comment directly as this matter is now the subject of an independent enquiry. The outcome of the enquiry will help identify any action the Department and Trust can take to prevent a similar tragedy in the future.”
The latest controversy comes just weeks after it emerged that two members of staff were suspended at Antrim Area Hospital after the deaths of two babies there in 2005 and 2006.
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