\u201cWhen our baby was being resuscitated and worked on … no one communicated to us what was happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Human Rights Review Tribunal<\/a> has issued a declaration that registered midwife Korina Burne-Vaughn breached the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers\u2019 Rights<\/a>.<\/p>\n The case was referred to the Human Rights Review Tribunal following the findings of an earlier complaint by the baby\u2019s grandmother to the Health and Disability Commissioner. <\/p>\n Particularly, the tribunal\u2019s declaration said Burne-Vaughn failed to provide services to the mother with reasonable care and skill; failed to provide services that complied with legal, professional, ethical, and other standards; and failed to provide information that a reasonable consumer would expect to receive.<\/p>\n Burne-Vaughn has acknowledged that her conduct during the later stages of the woman\u2019s pregnancy and around the birth was in breach of the code.<\/p>\n She accepted that she did not order a 28-week blood test for the mother, did not follow up on the results of the 29-week ultrasound scan, and visited the mother less frequently than required.<\/p>\n She accepted that her care and management of mother and baby during labour was inadequate, and she failed to regularly monitor and record fetal and maternal observations according to expected guidelines.<\/p>\n She also accepted that her management of the resuscitation was inadequate and delayed. <\/p>\n She failed to assemble the necessary resuscitation equipment before the birth.<\/p>\n In an agreed summary of facts attached to the tribunal decision, Burne-Vaughn accepted that while initially her focus was on the resuscitation and the trauma and stress involved, she failed to communicate that the baby had been stillborn.<\/p>\n This led the family to believe that he was born alive and subsequently died during the resuscitation attempts.<\/p>\n \u201cThe [mother] had no knowledge that her baby had not taken a breath and did not have a heartbeat at the time of his birth,\u201d the summary said. <\/p>\n \u201cThe wh\u0101nau assumed their baby had lived then died on the [resuscitation] table because no one communicated to them otherwise. <\/p>\n \u201cThey found out that it was a stillbirth four days later from hospital midwifery staff.\u201d<\/p>\n