Mother says demise of her child from sepsis is the ‘worst expertise’

An inquest into the deaths of three premature babies given contaminated feed by hospitals heard how one of the mothers described it as the ‘worst experience a parent could have’.

Aviva Otte, Yousef Al Kharboush, and Oscar Barker died when the nutrients they were receiving directly into their blood streams, called Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN), became infected in 2014.

Yousef – who was born at St Thomas’ Hospital in London – was just nine days old when he died on June 1 after Bacillus cereus bacteria infected his TPN feed.

Three-month-old Aviva – also born at St Thomas’ – died on January 2 of that year when the same bacteria infected her feed.

Meanwhile, Oscar – from the Rosie Maternity Hospital in Cambridge – was a little over a month old when he passed away on June 29.

Speaking of her loss, Yousef’s mother Ghanda Al Kharboush told the inquest: ‘It is the worst experience a parent could have. The consultant told me Yousef had water in his lungs.

‘I was told that there was nothing more they could do for him. At this point, I asked them to stop what they were doing. I wanted to end his pain.

‘I then took Yousaf in my arms while still attached to the ventilator.’

At the time of Aviva’s death, St Thomas’ were making the TPN internally, but after the outbreak of Bacillus cereus they shut down their process and outsourced to a company called ITH Pharma.

The inquest at Inner London Coroner’s Court, which is being presided by Dr Julian Morris, will hear evidence about what doctors at St Thomas’ knew about the outbreak.

It will also address if the hospital should have passed this information on to ITH Pharma before they started supplying the feed.

The feed provided to Yousef and Oscar by ITH Pharma was being used by nine different hospitals across the UK between May and June 2014 and saw 17 more babies become ill.

ITH Pharma was fined £1.2million for regulatory offences following the deaths of Oscar and Yousaf.

Previously, a spokesman for ITH Pharma said: ‘ITH was not told of the previous outbreak of Bacillus cereus and death at St Thomas’ at any point prior to the summer 2014 incident.

‘This is deeply troubling given that this appears to be the very reason we were brought in to supply TPN at St Thomas’.’

In 2022, ITH Pharma admitted failing to conduct a suitable and sufficient risk assessment between August 2009 and June 2014, and two charges of supplying a medicinal product which was not of the nature or quality specified in the prescription.

The court also heard from Hollie Barker, mother of Oscar, who was visiting doctors once or twice a week to discuss her progress in 2014.

In the weeks after giving birth via a caesarean, she was told her son had suffered a difficult night in the hospital.

In a statement to the inquest, Miss Barker added: ‘During Oscar’s last week alive in June, the hospital staff requested numerous times that his life support system be turned off.

‘I felt I was not being told the truth or the whole 100 per cent truth… I lost faith in the hospital and became very stressed over the care of Oscar.

‘I wanted everything to be done but deep down I knew he wasn’t getting any better. I went into a private room with Oscar, cuddled him and said my goodbye to him.’

Previously, St Thomas’ said that it was ‘in no way obliged to inform ITH Pharma of the outbreak in January 2014 and to suggest otherwise is inaccurate and misleading.’