A midwife at a major Queensland government hospital claims the deaths of at least three babies could have been avoided if her warnings had been heeded. ABC investigations has uncovered dozens of failures in the maternity ward at Redcliffe Hospital in the lead up to the deaths. Both the hospital and Queensland Health admit mistakes were made but claim that improvements to care have been implemented. A warning that this report may distress some viewers.
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00:00Baby Remy should have spent the first nights of his life here, but instead he was laid
00:09to rest in a tiny casket.
00:12I woke up and said is my baby alive and I got no, just no.
00:17Lacey Morgan was told her baby was stillborn because of complications related to her diabetes.
00:23It was pretty much blamed on diabetes, but I was in there because I was sick and my diabetes
00:29went crazy so I thought I was in the right place.
00:33The ABC can reveal that for more than a year before Remy's death, a midwife had repeatedly
00:38warned the hospital it was failing to adequately care for women with high-risk pregnancies,
00:44including regular checks that could have saved Lacey's baby's life.
00:49It's abysmal.
00:50It almost brings me to tears that people come in trusting us to do the right thing and we
00:59didn't do our job.
01:03One month before Lacey lost her baby, Charmaine Janison, also a type 1 diabetic, had presented
01:09to Redcliffe Hospital.
01:11I am horrified of the care that I got from the Redcliffe Hospital.
01:17I feel they could have done more.
01:20The hospital was slow to identify that Charmaine was suffering from a potentially fatal complication
01:25of diabetes, ketoacidosis.
01:28Her baby almost died.
01:30And it took days to actually establish what was wrong, so that baby was potentially in
01:37a highly acid environment for days.
01:41Jackie Pauline says Charmaine's case should have been a wake-up call for the hospital,
01:46especially in caring for diabetic mothers.
01:49But no official risk report was made which would trigger an investigation.
01:54And then, of course, Lacey lost her baby.
01:58Had they done something when Charmaine came in, it might have all been avoided.
02:04She might have taken her child home.
02:06How does that make you feel?
02:08Angry.
02:09Just because I don't want it to happen to anyone else.
02:17Jackie Pauline became a whistleblower, complaining directly to then Queensland Health Minister
02:21Yvette Darth.
02:23I didn't feel I was being listened to.
02:27And I needed to escalate it because I couldn't sleep at night anymore.
02:32In a statement, Ms Darth said she alerted Queensland Health to Jackie Pauline's allegations,
02:37which were also referred to the department's Ethical Standards Unit.
02:42But three months after Lacey lost her baby, another infant was still born at Redcliffe
02:47Hospital.
02:48She went home with a dead child.
02:53Through mismanagement.
02:56The hospital undertook what it called an independent assessment following Jackie's complaints,
03:01but it was never made public.
03:04The problems haven't been solved, no.
03:07Months after that investigation, a third baby died at Redcliffe Hospital.
03:12This time, the government publicly responded by promising improvements to maternity care
03:17at the hospital and across the state, but Jackie says it all came too late.
03:22There's been a common thread, there's been fragmentation of care, lack of communication
03:29between nursing and medical staff.
03:34In a statement, the hospital said patient safety is always our highest priority.
03:39When we fall short, we do our best to improve the care we provide.
03:43The hospital said following an independent review, improvements have included changes
03:48to leadership and additional staffing.
03:51But there are now calls for a further investigation.
03:54While I can't comment on any specific case, there certainly are some areas that I think
04:00that need to be investigated.
04:03Something needs to be done.
04:05There's too many babies being taken.