With cases like Charlie Gard’s and Alfie Evans’ making international news, another British mother recently came forward with claims that doctors switched off her newborn son’s life support without her consent.
The Daily Mail reports Macey-Lou Furridge’s newborn son died barely a day after he was born on Dec. 21.
The 16-year-old mother said she complained several times to medical staff that something did not seem right, but they initially dismissed her concerns. When they did act, she said it was too late. Now an investigation is under way.
Here’s more from the report:
Macey-Lou Furridge, 16, gave birth to Marni-Lee but he struggled to breathe by himself and was put on a life support machine at Basildon Hospital in Essex.
Marni-Lee needed specialist treatment at Great Ormond Street Hospital and staff at Basildon allegedly told her that he wouldn’t survive the journey, or breathe on his own for more than two hours.
When he was taken off life support and given to Macey-Lou, he survived on his own for 15 hours, she says, adding: ‘They could have taken him to London, they could have.’
On that traumatic December day, Furridge said she went to the hospital complaining of severe pain.
“I went up to the counter and I said ‘something isn’t right’. They gave me a sick bowl and put me into a room,” she said. “I laid on the bed and they put a monitor around me to check the heartbeat. Then when the staff walked out of the room, my waters broke. They were not normal as the baby had pooed inside me.”
Only then did doctors appear to realize something was very wrong. They rushed Furridge into the operating room for an emergency cesarean section; later, she was diagnosed with preeclampsia, according to the report.
Furridge said the medical team put her son on life support at first, but later took him off it without her consent. The report does not indicate how far along Furridge was in her pregnancy, but, based on photos of Marni-Lee that accompany the report, he appeared to be nearly full-term.
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“He was still breathing in my arms, but gasping for air,” she said. “You could see it, his lips moving and trying to gasp for air, and his heart was still beating. It was 15 hours after that he died. They could have taken him to London, they could have.”
The report continues:
Following his death, an autopsy was carried out which Macey-Lou said showed that nothing was wrong with his lungs or brain that could have lead to his death.
She is now waiting for Basildon Hospital to finish investigating their own report around Marni-Lee’s death, which she expects to conclude in the near future.
The hospital issued a statement recently expressing its sorrow for Furridge’s loss and promising to continue investigating the situation surrounding her baby’s death.
“When the report is complete, we will invite the family to meet with us again to discuss the findings,” the statement said. “We would like to again express our condolences to Macey-Lou and her family for their sad loss.”
