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You’re absolutely entitled to your opinion. Which evidence is making you think this way?
The hospital itself absolutely had its failings which definitely contributed to how she did manage to get away with things. Equally, think of the hospital setting, the lay person wouldn’t think LL was doing anything untoward…the parents put their upmost trust in the nurses and the doctors. The ward sounded chaotic at times (because of her) and I imagine the other nurses weren’t even thinking someone could possibly be causing these incidents because why would you think that? It’s a huge thing to think about a colleague.
If you look into other health care murders, they often went undetected for years too due to people thinking a) someone in the profession surely couldn’t be doing X and b) they were doing things disguised as normal medical duties
So they're talking about Dr Cockington rather than BNE?
Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, of course! Maybe the nurse in me is naive like you say as how could someone hurt innocent babies.
All medications are locked away and double checked! especially the likes of insulin, it's not a drug used regularly on a level 2 neonatal unit. Again, everything is double checked and if infusions or medication is administered via a longline it's a sterile procedure and you need two members of staff to do this.
And if she added it to a bag of fluids already running i cannot see how she went a fridge, drew up insulin and administered it into a bag without someone noticing and asking if she needed a check or question what she was doing.
It's very different to adults where someone would have more opportunity to tamper.
Again I'm not saying she's innocent but I'm not 100% sure she's guilty either.
She brought a big bag for life to work, she could have quickly taken the bag of fluids and insulin vials to the toilet and contaminated them there. The insulin isn't a controlled drug and the fridge didn't need an ID badge to open. She liked to work nights when it was quiet. She could place a syringe full of air in her pocket and wait until no one was looking. There not really difficult crimes to commit.
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The same way that Beverley Allitt had the chance to do what she did. Injecting air into an IV line would take seconds and *air via the NGT in enough of a quantity to cause harm would take less than a minute*
*According to consultant neonatologists spoken to for Judith Moritz and Jonathan Coffey's book about this case
Have you worked on a neonatal unit?
Insulin isn't a controlled drug no but everything is double checked as I said the fridges are locked and need a key. The cupboards are locked too.
There was no evidence insulin was going missing. As for taking a bag for life onto the unit, putting fluid and insulin in and taking it off to the toilet I'm sorry I cannot see how she did that without being noticed.
A syringe of air, are you referring to the air they said she pumped into stomachs?
We had a few discussions about this at the time of the first trial so I’m only going by memory here so I might not be 100% correct but she had the keys and what they used to do on this ward was pass the keys around and basically have a bit of free reign - again, this is one of the examples of how the ward ran which absolutely allowed her opportunities that she shouldn’t have had.
She also falsified notes on other instances. I also think they didn’t always do things in twos but still had 2 signatures and they sometimes did those signatures hours after etc. For example, I think there was opportunity for her to be with the insulin bags and tamper with them without anyone else being there and no one batting an eyelid that she was in there with the medication etc. I think this was established by witnesses in the trial too as they were asked how it all “should” work on the ward and then what they did in reality
They went through 6 vials of insulin in 2015. Usually it was 2 or 3 a year.
She said Letby did everything by the book and everything right. Well taking home and retaining 257 handover sheets was against hospital policy. Rees must know it wasn't ethical to do all the Facebook searches of parents. She will be aware all the text messaging about patients was an infringement of confidentiality. She must know the frivolous texting whilst on duty and in clinical areas whilst she should have been caring for babies was not right. Karen Rees is a disgrace doing an article like this and insinuating Letby was a good, caring nurse who did everything right and by the book. Whatever she thinks about the verdicts of murder and harm Letby did so many things deliberately wrong that Rees as the most senior nurse in the Trust appears to be condoning.Interview with Karen Rees, this woman is shameless.
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This isn't concrete evidence though. Like I say it's rarely used but once it is it has its to be discarded within 28 days. So if they had 6 babies in a year needing it then that's the 6 vials.
Again I'm not here to plead her innocence but some of the evidence people are taking as gospel is circumstantial or has other explanations.
The insulin vials evidence was discussed at the trial. The defence could have looked into if the extra insulin was needed for more babies.
Have you read the wiki?
You've not discovered anything that wasn't dealt with at the trial. You're not alone at not liking the verdict of the jury.
Scapegoated by who though?
Scapegoated by the consultants? Why would they actively push for investigations into the deaths and incidents if they were responsible for them?
Scapegoated by management? I hardly think so as they did everything in their power to keep her on the unit!
I honestly don't understand the scapegoat theory.
All the evidence was circumstantial. Bossman Goss gave guidance on that to the jury.
The closest to an actual witness was Dr Jayaram.
I'd also advise reading the Thirlwall enquiry transcripts to see the absolute tit show of NHS management (not including SB and RJ)
If you think COCH had that level of control over the insulin and double checking of meds then I’m finding it hard to believe you’ve read much of the evidence in detail. Very simply the babies became poorly soon after a TPN bag was started, there is evidence it was insulin poisoning including quite specific timings by an insulin expert (a professor), there was only one nurse who had access to both babies (about 8 months apart), she had access to both the insulin and all the bags involved that would be relatively untraceable (eg no signing of keys for the fridge). There is no other explanation with these cases.
I’m curious how you think the hospital were able to get away with scapegoating her even after a lengthy police investigation? Especially when there is a significant amount of evidence showing the hospital bosses actually went above and beyond to protect her?
I'm aware of that.
I just don't think it's black and white. It's an incredibly sensitive subject and I feel for
the parents in all this.
nobody has ever been able to explain how this would have been carried out. It’s even more ridiculous since all the Thirlwall evidence has been published.
@Whythough re the insulin - is it your contention that there wasn't a way to poison the babies with insulin because of the safeguards you mention or that there was no evidence that anyone was harmed by insulin in the first place? Just because you can't believe safeguarding potentially dangerous drugs can be eluded, doesn't negate the fact that even the defence during the trial accepted that there were at least one (it's been a while, I haven't doubled checked the wiki/trial reporting to see if more than one was acknowledged by the defence) baby who had been harmed by having massive doses of insulin administered. So how did whoever did it circumvent the safety protocols? And some of that safeguarding is around miscalculating amounts rather than preventing deliberate harm, so it had failed regardless on your view on Letby.
What are your thoughts on the rate of tube dislodgments during her earlier placements? Genuinely interested!
What are your thoughts on the rate of tube dislodgments during her earlier placements? Genuinely interested!
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