Hospital bosses wanted killer nurse Lucy Letby BACK despite docs' warnings she may be murdering babies
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MANCHESTER, UNITED KINGDOM: The bosses of Countess of Chester Hospital tried repeatedly to reinstate Lucy Letby, who is charged with the murder of seven babies and the attempted murder of 10 others between 2015 and 2016, despite fears she was responsible for killing babies in the neonatal ward. Dr John Gibbs said in Manchester Crown Court on Wednesday, March 22, there were repeated attempts by management to reinstate the 33-year-old nurse over an 11-month period.
The jurors heard that Letby was taken away from "frontline" duties in June 2016 because pediatricians feared she was linked to the number of unexplained deaths as they were "not medically explicable," reports Daily Mail. Dr Gibbs told, as per BBC, that the deaths of the twin brothers, Child O and P, of three triplets was a "tipping point for realizing something very abnormal and wrong was happening on the neonatal unit. This was happening again and again over that year. That cannot just be coincidence or bad luck, there had to be a cause."
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'It was a trend that had built up over time'
"I'd become increasingly concerned about the unusual, unexplained and inexplicable collapses that had been happening on the neonatal unit and the fact that Staff Nurse Letby had been involved in all of them," explained Dr Gibbs, who then told Ben Myers KC, representing the nurse, the collapses were unique events that he had never seen before in his career. 'Dr Gibbs described, as stated by Daily Mail, "Medicine could never be an exact science and there were occasions when doctors were unable to find an explanation for a patient's demise. But this was happening again and again on our unit and that can't just be coincidence or bad luck. There had to be a cause. The concern I've described was becoming apparent. It was unusual that unexpected incidents kept on happening. It was a trend that had built up over time."
'Safety measures were introduced'
Dr Gibbs said after the deaths of the twins, he and his colleagues requested to remove Letby from the unit. He told the court that this "wasn't a simple straightforward decision" and there was pushback from managers, states BBC. However, "after the deaths of (Baby) P and (Baby) O, and regrettably, tragically, too late for them, safety measures were introduced," recounted Dr Gibbs. Following this, the nurse was removed from the unit.
"It was not a simple, straightforward procedure because a month later they met with us and told she should come back. We said that should only happen if we had CCTV in every room on the unit. Over the next 11 months we had to resolutely resist repeated attempts by management to have Staff Nurse Letby come back to the unit." He said despite the repeated requests for some action, senior managers had been "extremely resistant to involving police." "We had to keep insisting the police be involved," said Dr Gibbs. He told Myers, "I'm not sure at what point we (as consultants) should have gone to the police. It's our duty to ensure the safety of babies and that's what we've done. None of us, regrettably, knew that two babies had been poisoned with insulin, so we didn't have the full picture."
The deaths of Child O and Child P
According to Daily Mail, Letby has been accused of injecting air into stomachs and bloodstreams of the premature brothers. The court previously heard that the triplets, three brothers, were born weighing around 4lbs. However, Child O “unexpectedly” died at 5.45 pm on June 23, 2016, while child P’s condition got worse 23 hours later and he died at 4 pm. Letby, whose trial began on October 10, 2022, denies the murders of the two brothers and others and the attempted murders of 10 between June 2015 and June 2016, while she was working as a neonatal nurse.