UK midwives have no shame.
First their negligence kills a man’s son. Then they proverbially shit all over him when he seeks to hold them accountable.
[pullquote align=”right” color=”#dc4c2a”]What’s compassionate about insinuating that a loss father is a liar, Sheena?[/pullquote]
What is wrong with the NHS that they allow patients to be publicly treated with the utmost contempt?
What is wrong with Sheila Byrom, a midwifery “leader” no less, that she is now publicly questioning the truth of James Titcombe’s book about his late son Joshua?
In a remarkable testament to the veracity of James’ new book Joshua’s Story, detailing the preventable death of his newborn son and the subsequent cover up, Jeremy Hunt, the UK Secretary of Health, publicly promoted it on Twitter.
In response, one woman accused James of making it up:
no doubt sensationalized out of all recognition of the truth to suit
That’s not surprising. Twitter is full of heartless trolls whose idea of a good time is calling other people liars.
What’s surprising is that midwifery leader Sheila Byrom retweeted the hateful words and “liked” it to boot. She was joined by her daughter Anna Byrom, also a midwife.
Ironically, Byrom is the author of the book The Roar Behind the Silence: Why kindness, compassion and respect matter in maternity care.
What’s compassionate about insinuating that a loss father is a liar, Sheena?
This is not the first time that Sheena Byrom has publicly treated Titcombe with contempt as he tries to prevent others from enduring the searing loss that he and his wife were forced to endure.
Highlights include:
oh James-don’t let’s get on that roll again …
and:
getting out of bed in the morning has risks
Yes, James, how could you be so tiresome, always going on about the risks of childbirth and the babies who die as a result? Sheena is so over that.
Byrom ought to be ashamed of herself for the chilling way that she dismissed the father of a baby who died as a result of midwifery incompetence. But that would involve insight, compassion and a sense of responsibility, something in woefully short supply among UK midwives in general and Byrom in particular.
In the book, James writes movingly about the hours after Joshua’s death at 9 days old:
We take it in turns to hold him, kiss him, tell him how much we love him and how sorry we are. And then we have to say goodbye. In the nicest possible way, the nurses tell us that Joshua has to be moved out of the room and we understand. Other babies need to be cared for and staff need to do their best and carry on with their jobs. We talk about the practicalities – where Joshua’s body would be sent. We are given the option of taking Joshua’s body away with us back to Cumbria by car. This we simply can’t face; Joshua is taken to the mortuary…
We get to the hotel later that evening. The night is spent in tears, desolate and empty. The next day my parents take Emily in their car. It takes some time to get Hoa into our car. She doesn’t want to move. On the way back home Hoa tries to jump out of the moving car twice. Each time I have to swerve and stop violently.
My wife simply doesn’t want to live…
How can Byrom read something like that and treat that father so viciously?
Byrom has proverbially publicly shit all over a loss parent, more than once, and has been allowed to get away with it.
WHY?
Sheena Byrom should publicly apologize to James Titcombe and acknowledge that her contemptuous treatment has no place in contemporary midwifery.
