A coroner in the UK has ruled that a thirty-seven-year-old mum, who had just given birth to twins, died because of a series of mistakes made at the hospital.
Estelle O’Sullivan was brought to the operating theatre at Wexham Park Hospital in Slough for an emergency Caesarean section in February of 2015. While her identical twin sons were born healthy, Ms O’Sullivan’s condition began to deteriorate, at which stage a number of crucial errors were made.
According to Berkshire coroner Peter Bedford, the doctors who performed the C-section did not realise how much blood Ms O’Sullivan, who suffered from a blood clotting condition, had lost.
When the midwife realised the patient was in trouble, the emergency button she pressed to alert the doctors did not work, meaning she had to run through the hospital to find help, wasting valuable seconds.
According to The Telegraph, the coroner also heard that the wrong blood type had been written on the new mother’s patient records and specialist, life-saving fluids ordered to the hospital were given to the wrong person.
The defibrillator in her room was found to be low on battery and there were fears that ‘a surgical clamp may have been left inside the mother’s abdomen’.
Ms O’Sullivan suffered seven cardiac arrests. After an hour of unsuccessful resuscitation attempts, she was declared dead.
The coroner recorded a verdict of death by natural causes but highlighted a ‘gross failure’ to provide Estelle O’Sullivan with basic medical attention.
He said: ‘I do believe there was an opportunity for an earlier scan and if that had been done, it might have identified placenta acreeda. Nobody would have delayed performing the necessary Caesarean process.
‘There was sufficient evidence that highlights the high risk patient was bleeding. Should an earlier C-section have been done, she would have survived on the balance of probability.’
Ms O’Sullivan is survived by her partner, her daughter and her twin sons.
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