MUM’S AGONY: Negligence Probe As Baby Girl Dies After Op To Repair Cleft Lip
A six-month-old baby’s death during an op to repair a cleft lip is being investigated by police after is was exposed on social media.
The baby – named as Angelina Bavrina in local media in Barnaul, Siberia, Russia – had undergone what was described as a minor op in a children’s hospital.
But four days later the infant was declared dead after she stopped breathing following a weekend on a ventilator.
Now officials at the Children’s Emergency Hospital in Barnaul are facing a negligence investigation.
The shocking death emerged when one of the child’s grandmothers took to social media to challenge the hospital.
She wrote: “At the weekend, all the doctors left and only the medics that are on call remained.
“We tried to find out what we could but there was no one to give us any answers. We were told that on Monday, we would be told everything.”
But by Monday after three days on a ventilator, the child died in intensive care from sepsis.
Her gran – unnamed in local media – wrote: “The mother handed the baby over the surgery and will now never see her again, never.
“Instead all we got back was a little exhausted body with a mutilated face.”
The baby’s mother – identified only as Elena – had travelled 200 km to the hospital with her baby for what she had been told was a routine op.
Her grandmother says she took to social media to put pressure on the hospital, which apparently had not told the family the baby was ill.
The mother said that she was hysterical after three days of being kept from her child and then told that she had died – she said: “I was crying, and the nurse next to me was crying as well.”
Local officials confirmed that a criminal investigation has been opened, on suspicion of causing death by negligence.
Kristina Oberemchenko, senior assistant to the head of the Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation said that they believed the youngster had a previous illness that had not been properly diagnosed and as a result was not properly treated during the surgery.
The Ministry of Health of the Novosibirsk Region and the hospital both declined to comment on the social media posting.