Sunday 25 April 2010

"...fit to return to work as a midwife."

Paula Grant, 55, left the devastated woman – known as Mrs B – alone for long periods and snapped at her when she questioned why she would have to give birth in a blood-spattered room, the Nursing and Midwifery Council heard.

Grant told the woman – whose baby had died in the womb – she would be in “excruciating pain” while delivering the child.
How dare she question the cleaning standards in the NHS! Who does she think she is, someone forced to pay for it, or something?
Grant also tried to bully junior midwife Dolly Hewett into recording a baby girl born at 20 weeks gestation was stillborn, when she had been alive and moving for some time after she was handed to her parents.

When Miss Hewett refused to do so, Grant signed the form herself.

She later locked Miss Hewett in a room and demanded to know what she had said when she heard a complaint had been made about her.
Well, it's nice to know this angel of mercy doesn't just reserve her bile for her patients isn't it?
Yet after hearing about the corrective steps Grant had taken since the incidents, the midwidfery panel ruled her fitness to practice was not impaired.
*boggle*
Chairman Lesley White said: “The misconduct of the registrant revealed her, at the time, as someone who was behaving arrogantly and impatiently with junior members of staff and patients.

“The panel considers she has addressed this unfortunate poor performance.”
And how has she 'addressed' it?

Why, in the usual way. She said 'sorry'. That was, apparently, good enough...
Quite why she behaved in the way she did, the panel cannot say.

“But it does accept the consequences of her behaviour represented a profound wake-up call to the registrant.”
I think we all know why she behaved in the way she did. In fact, I think the answer's staring us all in the face...

But it seems she couldn't resist showing the panel exactly why she is unfit for any kind of caring role, not that it didn't go right over their heads:
Speaking about the incident with Mrs B, Grant told the hearing she did not tell the patient the experience would be as traumatic for her.

Yet she conceded: “I should have just said, ‘I am sorry for your loss’.

“It was wrong and I am sorry.”
Yes, you read that right. She feels the reason she snapped at the patient about to deliver a dead baby was because the situation was as traumatic for her, the midwife.

Not 'an unfortunate part of the job', or 'a stressful situation', but 'as traumatic'. As traumatic as it was for the woman losing her dead baby...

The lack of self awareness and basic humanity of anyone that could utter that in her defence beggars belief.

Now, I know there's a desperate shortage of midwives. But surely we don't need midwives this badly, do we?

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, well, Basildon hospital again..

Just seen a photograph of her, guess what colour.

blueknight said...

I was about to say that she must have had a trump card to play, then I followed the link to the photo.
It looks as if Rightwinggit has the same opinion.

AntiCitizenOne said...

JuliaM,
I might post this upto NDS. Is that ok?

Brian, follower of Deornoth said...

See previous post...

JuliaM said...

Ac1, sure, go for it! :)

RantinRab said...

Just had a look at the pic.

It's propa Bo, a tells ya...

woman on a raft said...

The Nursing and Midwifery Council must be useless too, assuming the Echo has the details right. Why aren't the police investigating what may be a crime, particularly if Grant was acting on hospital orders.

Grant also tried to bully junior midwife Dolly Hewett into recording a baby girl born at 20 weeks gestation was stillborn, when she had been alive and moving for some time after she was handed to her parents.

The word 'stillborn' has a precise legal meaning and it entails a pregnancy of at least 24 weeks, not 20.

So if poor Mrs B was enduring a delivery at 20 weeks, what she was was having was a miscarriage, not a stillbirth. See Royal College of Obstetricicians and Gynaecologists briefing.

Moreover, Miss Hewett says the baby wasn't dead. She says this was a premature live birth at 20 weeks. That's a heck of a category difference, even if a 20 week foetus is not realistically going to survive.

It opens the question of why Grant tried to argue the foetus was dead when the baby was alive, and why she got in to the stillbirth certification nonsense, since there is no legal registration requirement at 20 weeks.

Was it because Grant had been told the hospital wished to avoid the expense of coping with a 20 week premmie? I've every sympathy with that view, but that doesn't mean staff should be encouraged to classify folks as dead when they yet live, or get away with hiding what is a police matter inside the disciplinary process.

I wondered if fear of being accused of racism was the reason to allow Grant to continue working, but an alternative explanation is that the RCNM just don't want their members' role in covering up deaths looked at too closely in public.

I wonder if it is worth pointing this out to Essex police?

Gibby Haynes said...

Just had a look at the pic.

It's propa Bo, a tells ya...


Indeed.

Mike said...

what is a male midwife called? mid husband, mid person of parental responsibilty or gay

JohnRS said...

"But surely we don't need midwives this badly, do we?"

Actually, yes we do.

It's just that we dont need this particular midwife, at all, ever, end of.

JuliaM said...

"Well, well, Basildon hospital again.."

Yes, I rarely hear good things about that one...

"The Nursing and Midwifery Council must be useless too, assuming the Echo has the details right."

Given it's the Echo, one might take it with a pinch of salt.

And I doubt the Essex police can see anything good (for them) in pursuing this. It's a vertiable Victimhood Poker marathon...

"It's propa Bo, a tells ya...

Indeed."


Lol!!

Anonymous said...

I'm sure the phrase 'lessons have been learned' or a variation thereof will appear somewhere; along with 'robust', 'resilience', 'issues' and 'around'.

Drivel!

Anonymous said...

Jesus wept!

Nursing is traumatic, no doubt about it. I spent many nights in casualty departments dealing with all sorts of injuries and illnesses and resuscitating patients, sometime in vain. Was it traumatic, yes of course it was. But not half as traumatic for the patient and their attendant relatives.

A nurse's job is not hectoring the patient, but one of reassurance and doing all you can to ease their pain and suffering.

Ms. Grant should never be let near a hospital ever again.

Anonymous said...

Cynically, I'd imagine she probably has at least 15 years of awful behaviour behind her.

That Nursing and Midwifery Council appears to be a public body.

Might be interesting to hit them with a few FOI requests regarding the number of document forgery cases which they allow to continue practicing.

Slowjoe

Anonymous said...

i think it was disgusting this so called midwife was found guilty of these offences and now effectively let to continue to practice in this way what the hell are the nmc thinking??!!

David Gillies said...

The district nurses, paramedics and GPs in my parents' area are fantastic. Thankfully horror stories like this are still rare. But they shouldn't happen at all. My mother, who was an SRN, midwife and finally senior health visitor before retirement, places a lot of the blame on the collapse of the Matron system. Matron was an almost mythic figure, who had the power to make or break a young nurse's career. Even a ward sister was pretty terrifying. And God knows I've seen my Mum shrivel someone she thought wasn't performing up to snuff.

Anonymous said...

David - you said;

''Matron was an almost mythic figure, who had the power to make or break a young nurse's career. Even a ward sister was pretty terrifying.''

...how is that any different to bullying? Whilst I agree Matrons may well benefit certain areas of nursing/care/ ward running in the NHS not all Matrons SHOULD (or deserve to) be Matrons! The Midwife discussed in this article was a SENIOR sister and she completely abused that role - thats NOT OK. She certainly had no right to 'make or break' anyone's career.

Anonymous said...

getting back to the point senior midwife or not this midwife was found guilty of bullying another midwife and patients that were bereaved, she should of been struck off the register not let off and allowed to continue her disgusting practice elsewhere,she couldnt care less about matrons or about caring for her patients

JuliaM said...

"A nurse's job is not hectoring the patient..."

It never used to be. But I think today, it's a large part of the job description...