She mattered then and she matters now: Fight for inquiry

When Fiona and Dan Winser-Ramm entered Leeds General Infirmary on New Year's Day 2020, they expected to leave with their healthy newborn daughter. Instead, they left with their world shattered.

- by Dennis Morton

Fiona with a picture of baby Aliona, who lived for just 27 minutes.

Their baby, Aliona, died just 27 minutes after she was born after what an inquest in 2023 ruled were "gross failures of the most basic nature." The couple said her death was preventable-and compounded by a culture of cover-ups and denial.

"We were made to feel like we were making a fuss out of nothing," Fiona told the Yorkshire Evening Post.

Despite repeated calls to the hospital about changes in movement, she was told everything was fine and to stay home. Medical records, the couple later discovered, had been forged to suggest they had been fully informed.

"They should have called the consultant, but they decided to wait and see," Dan says. "You're talking about the lives of women and children. A 'wait and see' culture does not sit side by side with safeguarding."