Mother of premature baby who died at 'award-winning' hospital says it was a 'gross failure'

Source: , Posted On:   24 July 2024

The mother of a baby who died after neglect at a hospital says there was a "catalogue of failures" which amounted to "a lack of basic care".

Selina Mazumder lost her daughter, Elena, in April 2020. She was one of two premature babies that died within weeks of eachother at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.

Elena was born on 16 April and her condition was classed as moderate.

But, two days later, routine monitoring revealed she had too much acid in her blood, known as metabolic acidosis and she was prescribed a sodium bicarbonate infusion.

She was instead given a sodium nitrite infusion and she died that day.

"I was expecting a baby in 2020 and she came three months early, I was rushed to Chelsea and Westminster hospital with the expectation I was going to have the baby three months early, and she was delivered at 25 weeks and two days," said Ms Mazumder.

"We went home grieving our child, thinking she had died from prematurity and then 10 or 13 days later we received a call from the chief nurse and she told us she had some terrible news and told us that there was a medication error...and that she had died from this medication error.

"We were already grieving our child and to be told some more bad news, it was quite confusing...it was just shock and disbelief that she died in this manner."