‘I was ignored by midwives – my son can’t walk or talk’

The report of the scandal at Nottingham hospitals outlines how numerous failings led to harm. Rebecca Thomas reports

- Rebecca Thomas

Mollie Sutton has spent the past seven years waiting for answers.

Her son Rupert, now aged seven, was born with severe disabilities and is now unable to walk or talk. He has the mental capacity of a four-month-old baby.

Ms Sutton, 27, endured a harrowing labour before Rupert’s birth, and believes that failures by Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) NHS Trust, both before and during her labour, may have caused his severe physical and mental disabilities. She is one of hundreds of families now seeking answers as to why their babies died or were left with disabilities at Nottingham hospitals.

A review by Donna Ockenden, which has looked at thousands of cases of alleged poor care at the hands of the trust, has published a report into the failings at NUH as part of what has become the largest ever maternity review in NHS history. The report found that more than 500 mothers and babies suffered potentially avoidable harm or died due to “deeply embedded systemic failures” at the “toxic” hospital trust.

Ms Sutton told The Independent: “This can’t continue to happen. How many more dead babies, dead mothers, harmed babies, harmed mothers do we have to see until somebody actually finally puts their foot down and does something about it?”

It was in September 2018, when she was 34 weeks pregnant, that Ms Sutton was admitted to hospital and diagnosed with sepsis. Three weeks later, at 37 weeks, her labour was induced. Ms Sutton, who was 19 at the time of the birth, described the intense pain she experienced during her labour. But she believes her pleas for help were ignored due to her age. “I was begging for pain relief. But I was told that I’m only two centimetres – I’m being dramatic. [They said] ‘I don’t know why you’re screaming because there are women on this ward with real problems,’” she said. Ms Sutton claims she was told by staff as she screamed in pain: “There are women who have just had babies, and we don’t need you shouting.”