Seriously?

[SueEllen]

If you consider the recipient will be the child it does sort of make sense that we should pay towards its care, however we are already committed to do that via the NHS. However being Sri Lankan refugees maybe they will return home as the Home office now consider it safe? If so a contribution to Sri Lankan healthcare costs makes sense.

Sending the child home now because midwives have screwed up is inhumane. In fact if you threatened the parents with that, all they would do is dump the child on the UK foster care system and the child would have to stay here until they were 18 at least. This would cost far more than the compensation they were awarded.

My point was that the NHS is being shown as the sole cause of the incident and the parents share no responsibility in what is basic child care.
My key point wasn't they hadn't contributed but of course that is a factor, it was that the parents had failed at basic parenting and the NHS was considered responsible.

But it is an NHS failing.

The main job of a midwife is to assist a woman before, during and after birth to ensure the baby is as healthy as possible.

They need to identify women who are at high risk of having problems due to social, demographic, ethnic and/or health factors before, during and after birth.

The midwives failed on this by ignoring the fact the parents were refugees and had limited English speaking skills. This risk factor was actually easy for the midwives to deal with and make plans for dealing with as it was there when the mother presented for antenatal care.

My last visit to Maternity was like visiting the tower of Babel with the multitude of languages, a large number of the patients required interpreters, many of the patients were disrespectful or very agitated and demanded significant extra effort from the midwives.

Not every birth is the same and not every woman and child deals with it the same way.

Added to that if you talk to women who have given birth over the decades - which you probably haven't done as a man - you will find that the level/amount of care the NHS provides through midwives, health visitors and GPs has decreased over the decades.

Now if it is your first birth and if you are in a poorer area - like the area this child was born in - they will chuck you out of the maternity unit much quicker than if you live in a richer area.

It is little surprise that some things are missed and not checked as well as they could be in hindsight,

Things were missed because the midwives weren't doing their job properly.