Birmingham hospital apologises after delays leave baby disabled

A hospital trust has acknowledged it made mistakes after a baby suffered catastrophic injuries during birth.

Dilshad Sultana was 36 weeks pregnant with her second child in 2019 when she experienced stomach pain and noticed her baby was moving less.

When she reported this to staff at Birmingham Women and Children's Hospital, she was told to take a bath.

Due to his injuries, her son, Shanto Khaliquzaman, is severely disabled and the trust later admitted liability.

Shanto has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy and is unable to walk, talk or sit unaided.

Mrs Sultana, from Sutton Coldfield, said she had been due to have a Caesarean section on 8 July but on 20 June she started to feel pain in her abdomen and lower back.

She said she was confused but that it did not feel like a contraction and called hospital staff at about 17:00 to say it felt like her baby was moving less.

After following advice to rest and take pain relief, she attended hospital at about 22:30 and staff started monitoring Shanto's heartrate.

It was not until almost three hours later that Shanto was delivered by emergency C-Section, however Mrs Sultana said he was "not in a good condition - it was heartbreaking".

"I was asking my husband, 'Why can't I hear the baby cry'?"

Shanto's heart had stopped and he had to be resuscitated.

He had suffered severe brain damage and would spent the next 22 days in intensive care, suffering seizures and multiple brain haemorrhages.

Mrs Sultana said they were advised he would not survive for long.

"It destroyed us," she said. "We were expecting a perfect baby.

"The only thing we knew was we had to bring him back - we wanted him in our lives and he deserved to live."

However she said she and her husband were asked about options for palliative care and whether they would prefer Shanto to die in hospital, a hospice, or at home.

The couple felt they needed to give their baby a chance. "He didn't deserve to die the way they were suggesting," she said.

Shanto now requires around-the-clock care and Mrs Sultana enlisted lawyers to pursue a care of medical negligence against the trust.

Her representatives said that if she been told to attend hospital when she first reported problems, Shanto would have suffered no harm.

The trust has admitted liability and made a voluntary interim payment allowing the family to move to a new home specifically adapted to meet Shanto's extensive care, therapy and equipment needs.

A final settlement cannot be finalised until Shanto is older and the full extent of his future care needs are established.

Fiona Reynolds, the chief medical officer at Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust, said: "We'd like to offer our heartfelt apologies again to the family.

"It's clear the standard of care we offered to them fell below those required and expected. For this, we are truly sorry."

Now, Mrs Sultana is campaigning for change - she wants to see mothers listened to in maternity care and more attention paid to monitoring babies' heartrates.

It follows the publication of the Donna Ockenden inquiry, which highlighted the same issues in its examinations of hundreds of baby and maternal deaths at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals.

"I just hope that by speaking out I can help prevent other families having to go through what we have," Mrs Sultana said.