Pinoy nurse widower in UK wants midwife charged with manslaughter

The widower of the Filipino nurse who died in England two hours after giving birth wants the midwife who wrongly injected a spinal drug into her wife’s hand arrested for manslaughter. “Mayra was my love and my life. We were overjoyed when Zac was born. But our life was torn apart by a midwife who failed to check the fluid she gave my wife," cried Arnel Cabrera, 38. Mayra Cabrera, 30, worked since 2002 as a theatre nurse at Great Western Hospital in Swindon, Wiltshire where she died from a heart attack two hours after giving birth to her and Arnel’s first baby, Zachary, in 2004. Arnel worked as a technician in the same hospital. Hospital midwife Marie To has denied mistakenly feeding an epidural drug Bupivacaine into Mayra's hand via an intravenous drip instead of her spine. During trial, To, a midwife for more than 20 years, said she thought the drug was a saline solution or Gelofusine, a blood volume expander to boost blood pressure. An epidural is an anaesthetic injection into the spine which numbs the nerves supplying the uterus and cervix so the mother can no longer feel contractions. The wrong injection of the drug caused a heart attack as the drug poisoned Mayra’s body. "Her failure to accept responsibility or show remorse makes me bitter and angry. I can't forgive and hope police and the CPS prosecute her for manslaughter," newspapers in the United Kingdom quoted Arnel as saying. An inquest jury ruled on Tuesday that Mayra was illegally killed following gross negligence by Swindon and Marlborough NHS (National Health Service) Trust, specifically putting the blame on chaotic storage of drugs in the maternity unit that led to the mix up. It was considered as a legal landmark being the first unlawful killing verdict against an NHS corporation instead of a doctor or nurse. Arnel and his son face deportation later this month because his immigrations status was conditional on his wife working in Britain, but there are sectors supporting him in fighting for his continued stay in the United Kingdom considering that his wife was ‘unlawfully’ killed. "It was Mayra’s wish to bring up our son in our newly adopted country," Arnel said. The inquest in Trowbridge, the county town of Wiltshire, England also heard a similar case in Sussex, a county in southeast England, but the police did not recommend charging anyone. The hospital where the victim died was sent a memo advising that Bupivacaine be stored separately from intravenous drugs. Swindon and Marlborough NHS trust has admitted liability but was not recommended for any charge. But after the Cabrera verdict, reports said the Wiltshire Police will submit the case to the Crown Prosecution Service with a new file of evidence gathered during the inquest. "We will look at the case again once we have received the file from the police. Until we see the evidence we cannot say if there will be a prosecution or not," the prosecution service said in a statement. - GMANews.TV