Oshea Medad Dover: Rachael Gourley represents parents of baby who died following delays in delivery
9th February 2024
An inquest into the death of a 1-month-old baby has found that delays in ambulance attendance and delays in delivery contributed to his death. Rachael Gourley appeared for the family of Oshea Medad Dover, instructed by Mercedes Mardell and Hannah Seignior of Slater & Gordon.
Baby Oshea sadly died after he sustained an acute profound hypoxic injury.
Oshea’s mother went into pre-term labour, at 30 weeks, and telephoned for ambulance assistance. The initial 999 calls were wrongly categorised. As a result, paramedics arrived 44 minutes later than they should have for a category 1 call.
Midwifery advice was for the paramedics to bring Oshea’s mother to hospital urgently due to the baby’s prematurity and the mother’s presentation.
There were further delays on scene due to difficulties in extrication. Paramedics were on scene for a total of 83 minutes. Midwives eventually attended the home and Oshea’s mother was brought to hospital.
At the end of the inquest, the Coroner concluded that had the initial call to emergency services been correctly categorised, Oshea’s mother would have been in hospital earlier and in sufficient time for CTG monitoring to be commenced. Such monitoring would have recognised foetal distress and would have prompted an emergency c-section.
The Coroner concluded that “had this happened, it is likely Oshea would have survived.”
Overall, the inquest found that that the delays in Oshea’s delivery caused his death.
In respect of the Prevention of Future Deaths, the inquest heard that whilst the local London Ambulance Service guidance has changed since Oshea’s death, the national guidance has not changed.
A Prevention of Future Deaths (‘PFD’) report was issued to the authors of the national guidance, the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (‘AACE’), and the Department of Health and Social Care.
Read more about Rachael’s practice here.
Back to index