Suspended midwife to leave profession

A midwife who was suspended after two baby deaths and three investigations has told a coroner's inquest she will give up the profession.

Paulette Whitford was suspended last September by the Midwifery Council, which said she posed "a risk of serious harm to the public".

Yesterday at a Papakura inquest into the death of another newborn baby, Sipiwe Brand-Holt, last July, Senior Constable Heather Ruddell said Paulette Whitford had told the council by letter she would not undertake a competency review programme as she was giving up midwifery.

Ms Ruddell told coroner Sarn Herdson - who reserved her decision - that Sipiwe was his mother Jacqueline Brand's first pregnancy.

She and her partner Brent Holt planned a home birth in a birthing pool. Sipiwe was breech at one point, but later turned into the correct position. His mother's blood pressure was raised at 28 weeks' gestation, but after rest had dropped four weeks later.

At more than 41 weeks, a week overdue, mother and midwife discussed inducing labour, but Jacqueline Brand wanted to wait until labour started naturally.

At 42 weeks, the baby was born in the pool, more than two days after the first contraction. He was coated in meconium; suctioning of his lungs removed clear mucus.

He developed breathing difficulties and was given oxygen several times before being transferred to Middlemore Hospital and then Starship children's hospital.

His condition stabilised but then deteriorated and he was attached to a heart-lung bypass machine. He died on July 3, aged 3 days. His parents did not wish to speak to the Herald after the inquest.

Addressing them earlier, Ms Herdson said: "You yourselves don't apportion blame or have any issues."

That was fitting for an inquest, she said, as coroners could not apportion blame either.

Paulette Whitford has been investigated three times by the Health and Disability Commissioner since 1997. After one of his investigations and following the delivery in 2003 of a baby boy with severe neurological damage who was hot after labour in a birthing pool, commissioner Ron Paterson wrote that she had failed to monitor mother and fetus adequately.

She also changed the medical notes without stating the changes were retrospective.

"[She] takes the philosophy of non-interference beyond the outer limits of acceptable practice.

"I am also concerned by [her] failure to acknowledge her shortcomings, and her unconvincing reference to a woman's needs as a 'unique individual' as justification for the failure to practise safely within relevant guidelines."

A senior Middlemore doctor reported Sipiwe's case to Mr Paterson and the Midwifery Council. Another doctor at Auckland City Hospital had previously alerted Mr Paterson to the death of a baby born to a woman cared for by the same midwife.

Mr Paterson, asked if his office had acted quickly enough to protect the public, said it had, after hearing from the two doctors.

"We immediately notified the Midwifery Council, whose responsibility it is to take action to suspend or impose competence review.

"The cases we had had to that point didn't reach that threshold, although we had certainly taken the precaution of alerting the council [the Nursing Council, which covered midwives at the time]."

Paulette Whitford did not attend the inquest or return calls yesterday.