Nurse Accused of Murdering 7 Babies in UK Socialised Healthcare System

A newborn sleeping in the arms of his mum at the maternity ward
Getty Images
Chris Tomlinson

A British nurse stands accused of murdering seven babies in the hospital in which she worked as a court heard testimony from a mother who allegedly witnessed the nurse in the process of murdering her child.

British nurse Lucy Letby is currently on trial at the Machester Crown Court over allegations that she murdered five baby boys and two baby girls at the Countess of Chester Hospital between 2015 and 2016 and attempted to murder another ten more children. She is facing 22 charges overall.

This week, the court heard testimony from the mother of one of the alleged victims, a five-day-old baby boy known as Child E, who witnessed Letby with her son as the baby was bleeding from the mouth and “acutely distressed,” according to a report from the BBC.

Media gather outside the Countess of Chester Hospital on July 3, 2018 in Chester, United Kingdom. Health care worker at the Countess of Chester Hospital, Lucy Letby, has been arrested on suspicion of murdering eight babies. (Photo: Anthony Devlin/Getty Images)

The mother testified that she did not realise the 32-year-old Letby was allegedly in the process of killing her child but notified her husband on the phone after Letby had told her to go back to her ward. The child later died after such excessive bleeding that one doctor said it was the most bleeding he had ever seen in such a young child.

Letby is also accused of not reporting the bleeding of the child in her nursing notes, with prosecutor Nick Johnson KC arguing she was trying to “cover her tracks.” While no autopsy of the child was performed, it is believed he died from an injection of air, according to the prosecutor.

A day later, Letby allegedly attempted to murder the twin of the child who had died, Child F, with the prosecution stating that Letby added insulin to the child’s feed saying, “Somebody poisoned him. No other baby on the neonatal unit was being prescribed insulin. Therefore it couldn’t have been negligence.” Child F survived the ordeal, however.

The prosecutor also alleged that Letby tried to kill a baby born at just 23 weeks a total of three times and that the child recovered from all signs of infection after being transferred away from Countess of Chester Hospital and the care of Letby.

While Baby G survived her experience at the hospital, the child was diagnosed with irreversible brain damage.

In further opening statements heard from the prosecution on Wednesday, it was alleged that Letby had attempted to kill another child — Child I — four times with air injections. The court heard the claim that once she succeeded in killing the baby, she then sent a condolence card to the child’s family. Reflecting on the claims the prosecution remarked: “It was persistent, it was calculated and it was cold-blooded.”

The court heard about child H, who it is alleged Letby also tried to kill. The child took a dramatic turn for the worse on two consecutive shifts where Letby was present, it is claimed, but then made a “sudden and remarkable recovery” as soon they were transferred to a different hospital.

Johnson linked the deaths of Child A, Child C, who was a premature baby, and Child D, who all allegedly died after being injected with air, causing their breathing and hearts to stop.

“She had injected air into the bloodstream of the first twins, child A and B, and varied this approach by injecting air into child C’s stomach via the nasogastric tube,” Johnson claimed.

Earlier this week, Johnson claimed that prior to January of 2015, the Countess of Chester hospital had an average mortality rate for infants but added, “However, over the next 18 months or so, there was a significant rise in the number of babies who were dying and in the number of serious catastrophic collapses.”

“Having searched for a cause, which they were unable to find, the consultants noticed that the inexplicable collapses and deaths did have one common denominator,” Johnson said and added, “The presence of one of the neonatal nurses and that nurse was Lucy Letby.”

Letby denies all charges.

 

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com.

 

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