KEY POINTS:
When Rizawana Hussein was in labour with her baby Anket, who was stillborn, her independent midwife never took her pulse.
Nor did she assess her pain adequately. And afterwards, she created "false" records.
The midwife, Bala Naidu, was yesterday found guilty of professional misconduct by the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal in Auckland.
Anket Leon Kesar was delivered in Middlemore Hospital at 6.15pm on August 8, 2005. An autopsy found he had died 18 to 24 hours earlier, from a large blood clot behind the placenta.
Ms Naidu pleaded guilty and the tribunal lifted her interim name suppression, fined her $5000 and ordered her to pay costs of $15,000.
It also ordered her to take Midwifery Council-directed training and be supervised for 18 months. Her caseload will be restricted to 50 births for one year and for the following six months to a level set by the council.
She has taken a three-month break from midwifery, but wants to return.
Her lawyer, Kathryn Beck, said Ms Naidu's excessive caseload in 2005 - she had delivered eight babies in the week before Anket - was a factor.
The tribunal heard that Mrs Hussein's pregnancy had been normal. On August 6, when she told the midwife her baby's movements had lessened, Ms Naidu explained this was because he had grown, leaving less room to move.
But an expert witness, Christchurch midwife Kay Faulls, told the tribunal Ms Naidu should then have given Ms Hussein a chart on which to record fetal movements.
She began experiencing lower abdominal pain on August 6 and from about 11 the following night it was constant. The agreed summary of facts records that when she went to the toilet on the morning of August 8, there was a "large gush" of clotted blood.
Ms Naidu told Anket's father, Davinder Singh, the bleeding was normal.
The lawyer for the Director of Proceedings, Alison Mills, said that if the midwife had taken Mrs Hussein's pulse during the 16-hour labour, its elevated rate would have alerted her to possible complications. It would also have told her that the fetal heartbeat she thought she had heard was the mother's pulse.
Although Ms Naidu was found guilty, there were no allegations that her misconduct had contributed to Anket's death.
Ms Mills said the midwife had omitted fundamental checks and failed to recognise signs that something was wrong with the baby.
"She then proceeded to make false records and made additions and alterations to her notes.
"This was probably done "to protect Ms Naidu from allegations of poor care and poor documentation".
But Ms Naidu said she retrospectively changed records to provide the most complete set of information.
Her lawyer reiterated her sympathy to Anket's parents, and Mr Singh said the tribunal's findings "definitely bring us closure".
