NEWCASTLE - A seven-months-pregnant woman whose unborn baby had died was sent home from a Newcastle hospital with a booklet for bereaved parents and told to "book a slot to give birth," The Guardian reported. The newspaper, in a report by reporter Josh Halliday, named the woman as Danielle Brown, 31, and said she had been discharged from hospital with pre-eclampsia, a potentially life-threatening pregnancy complication.
The Guardian also reported that the hospital trust admits Brown's baby would have survived had she not been sent home from the RVI days earlier.
BBC News reported that Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust apologises for care that it says "fell short of the standards" expected. Its headline says the mother was told to book an appointment to give birth to her dead baby.
The two outlets describe the instruction in different terms. According to their headlines, BBC News refers to an appointment, while The Guardian refers to a slot. The Guardian's account includes the booklet for bereaved parents, a detail that does not appear in the summary of the BBC News report.
The summaries available do not give dates for the discharge or for the trust's apology, and they do not say what steps the trust plans to take. Neither summary gives a full account of how the decision to discharge Brown was reached.
Sources: BBC News: Mother told to book appointment to give birth to her dead baby; The Guardian: Newcastle hospital told woman whose unborn baby had died to go home and ‘book a slot to give birth’.