OUR SEVEN YEARS OF HEARTACHE FOR BABY FREYA

Grieving parents' anger after hospital failures

- BY HANNAH RODGER

THE parents of a newborn baby who died in hospital have told how a catalogue of serious failures led to her death.

Martin and Karen Murphy waited seven agonising years for an inquiry following the death of Freya. But they say they still have more questions than answers.

THE parents of a baby who died at Scotland's largest hospital have revealed that they felt blamed for the death of their daughter.

Freya Murphy was born with significant brain and organ damage after a catalogue of failures at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow.

Her parents Karen and Martin were devastated when they had to allow Freya's life support machines to be switched off at just seven days old.

A fatal accident inquiry (FAI) before Sheriff Barry Divers found staffing shortages, failure by medics to notice that Freya was in distress as well as a lack of screening for Group B streptococcus were factors in the tragedy.

However, the couple have said they have been left with more questions than answers after the FAI took seven years to conclude.

Dad Martin, 44, from Cambuslang, near Glasgow, said: "It was the worst thing anyone could imagine happening to them.

"We left that hospital with no baby and no answers." Karen, 40, said she had expressed the wish to have a natural birth in the early stages of her pregnancy.

However she felt this was later "held against her" when at the FAI, medics suggested her wishes as a reason why they failed to intervene sooner during her labour.

Karen, a teacher of children with additional support needs, said: "I wanted to have as natural a birth as possible which was noted down during the pregnancy and not mentioned again.

"Then suddenly it was mentioned by doctors during the FAI, where it came across as an excuse or a defence for the fact they had made mistakes with Freya's birth as it was only mentioned years later.