Shropshire baby deaths review: Mother gets in touch with investigators

The review was launched last year at the request of then Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

Gaynor Cumine says she still has questions about why her son Mark died in November 1984.

The 59-year-old, who lives in the village of Pant, near the Welsh border, gave birth at Oswestry and District Hospital before being transferred to Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

“I first went into labour at 35 weeks, but they stopped that labour by giving me a pill,”she said.

“I was at 40 weeks when I gave birth.

“He was born on the Thursday and died on the Monday. They kept him on a life support machine. The doctor told us he would die or be severely disabled.

“On the Monday the machine was turned off and he died in our arms half an hour later.”

Mrs Cumine and her husband Andrew, 68, who have three other children, say they still don’t know why their son died.

“I don’t know if it was because they stopped my labour or for some other reason,” Mrs Cumine said.

Fobbed off

“After we lost Mark I started a baby loss support group in Oswestry.

“There were more mums who came in saying different things had happened to them at RSH.

“I went to the hospital and they said it was one of those things and they didn’t know what had happened.

“We were told there was no other route we could go down.

“It felt like we were fobbed off. Something like this changes your life completely.

“I’ve always had questions. I had tried to get the hospital notes to find out what had gone wrong. They said they were lost.”

She says she has contacted NHS Improvement to ask that her case is investigated.

It recently emerged the review into mother and baby deaths and injuries at Shropshire’s hospitals is now thought to be examining more than 100 cases.

Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, which now runs Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, was formed in 2003.

Some of the concerns being investigated surrounding maternity care at Shropshire’s hospitals pre-date this.