Midwife struck off after baby left critically ill

Shadae Mullard "repeatedly lied" to her colleagues both before and after the baby became severely unwell

A midwife has been struck off for failing to give a newborn baby a vital vitamin k injection and then telling "deplorable" lies about it when the baby became ill.

The baby boy went on to develop a rare bleeding disorder that the jab, offered to all newborns on the NHS, is designed to prevent.

Shadae Mullard repeatedly told her colleagues she had administered vitamin k, including when she was asked before the baby became unwell. The boy survived.

Mullard, who worked as part of the homebirth team at Liverpool Women's Hospital, is now banned from practising as a midwife indefinitely.

The baby suffered a large bleed on the brain

The case was referred to the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) after an internal investigation by Liverpool Women's Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

An independent disciplinary panel heard Mullard was the on-call midwife for the homebirth team when the baby's parents called on 1 May, 2021, and said the mother was in labour.

The baby, referred to as Baby A, had been born by the time Mullard arrived at their home, so she helped the mother to deliver her placenta and performed routine baby checks, the panel was told.

When another midwife, referred to as Colleague Z, attended the house later the same day she found there was no note to confirm vitamin k had been administered.

She phoned Mullard, who told her the injection had been given.

However the panel heard that on 1 June, 2021, Baby A was rushed to hospital with vomiting, a weak left arm and eyerolling.

'Catastrophic'

A scan revealed he had suffered a large bleed on the brain, graded by doctors as "catastrophic".

Blood tests revealed the symptoms were consistent with severe vitamin k deficiency, which can cause a condition called haemorrhagic disease of the newborn (HDN).

Baby A's condition stabilised after a vitamin k injection was given, although the panel's judgement did not describe his long-term prognosis.

The panel heard Mullard was called by another colleague and asked again if Vitamin K had been administered, to which she said it had.

A short time later, computer records showed that Mullard logged into Baby A's medical notes and made an entry for 1 May stating: "vit k given IM".

During the internal investigation, the trust found that Mullard had also failed to organise a set of blood tests for a separate patient.

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Medical experts concluded it was "extremely unlikely" that vitamin k had been given immediately after birth and Mullard was sacked on 18 January, 2022.

The panel wrote in a judgement published this week: "Your subsequent actions to cover up your omission resulted in you undertaking a deceitful course of conduct which included telling repeated lies to your colleagues and making an entry on Baby A’s clinical record which you knew to be false."

A spokesperson for Liverpool Women's Hospital said the case had been dealt with via trust disciplinary procedures.

They added: "Senior clinicians met with the family at the time to explain what had happened and to apologise on behalf of the trust.”