Baby Died at Chester Hospital Months After Lucy Letby’s Removal From Ward

A new-born baby collapsed at the hospital where Lucy Letby worked months after the nurse was removed from the ward, despite prosecutors’ claim that baby deaths stopped after she left being central to their case. The Telegraph has the story.

Archie McClements was born at the Countess of Chester Hospital six months after Letby had been suspended from her role over suspicious deaths and collapses of infants.

Archie died of enterovirus, which is transmitted by faecal matter, at a unit in Manchester in December 2016, shortly after being transferred there from Chester.

The prosecutors’ claims that suspicious deaths and collapses stopped after Letby was moved to an administrative role formed an important part of their evidence at her trial.

Letby was convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill seven others at the Countess of Chester Hospital between 2015 and 2016.

However, many medical and legal experts have questioned Letby’s guilt, and the Criminal Cases Review Commission is deciding whether to send her case back to the Court of Appeal.

Annalise McClements, Archie’s mother, said she was initially told that he had probably caught the illness from her during labour, but later discovered that the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester had experienced sewage and plumbing problems.

She told the Sun: “They said it was me – but they knew full well Archie could have caught it from the unit… I can’t forgive them for making me feel like that, for letting me take the blame.”

McClements said she now believed the hospital’s poor conditions were the likely cause of her son’s death.

She added: “I think he’s got the virus from the dirty sewage in the unit. How many deaths are because of that? How many deaths are the uncleanliness? It’s an explanation that makes far more sense than the alternative given.

“You could tell it was an old building. It felt run down. The toilets, the showers, all the facilities were just worn. It didn’t feel the cleanliness that you’d expect from a hospital. The unit was quite well known to have sewage coming up from the taps.”

McClements said she had also been concerned by what she perceived as the unit’s poor management, adding: “The first thing that was alarming to me when I did go to see Archie was the lack of staff.

“I couldn’t ever remember there ever being more than one person available at the time. I think I saw the consultant or a doctor once that week, and that was by chance.”

She questioned how many other children had died because of poor care at the Countess of Chester.

“Even if he didn’t die at Chester because they very quickly moved him out, he collapsed there,” she said. “But that’s not been included. So how many others aren’t being included? How many other babies started to decline or collapse and were shipped off to another hospital?”

Worth reading in full.