Statement from CL Medilaw following news coverage of Robyn Davis and Worthing hospital
Robyn Davis’ maternity care team describe the humour as dark and twisty as they fail to provide adequate care.
Before the inquest into the death of her 2 week old son Orlando had even started, Robyn discovered the hurtful and disrespectful comments on Facebook.
Robyn was formerly a midwife at Worthing Hospital and was a member of a private Facebook group along with former colleagues.
News of the social media post has been reported by the Daily Mail.
Laura Cook, our Partner who represented Robyn and her husband Jonny throughout comments –
It is a shocking and hugely disrespectful post to all the patients that suffered trauma that evening, but in particular Robyn who at around 3am was about to be put in an induced coma having suffered multiple and life threatening hyponatraemic seizures. Her baby Orlando was being resuscitated having been born lifeless.
We heard evidence at the inquest into Orlando’s death that there were multiple emergencies that evening, Robyn’s not being the first.
The sole doctor on shift, an obstetric Registrar who was only 3 nights in to the role as Registrar, described it as an ‘overwhelming night’. Despite this, the consultant on-call was not asked to attend until after Orlando was delivered by crash emergency caesarean section.
The Coroner found that there had been a sequence of gross failures in care that night but for which Orlando’s death would have been prevented.
We are appalled that the lead midwife in charge of the shift that night felt it appropriate to make such unprofessional comments in a social media forum about a night when her actions, and those of the midwives she was responsible for, have been found by the Coroner to have contributed to an otherwise healthy mother nearly dying and to Orlando’s tragic death.
