Inquest into contaminated baby feed deaths opens

A mother whose premature baby died after receiving contaminated feed at a hospital has told an inquest it was “the worst experience” a parent could have.

Ghanda Al-Kharboush’s nine-day-old son, Yousef, died in June 2014 at London’s St Thomas’ Hospital after developing blood poisoning or sepsis.

An inquest on Monday also shared details of the deaths of other babies given the feed around that time, including one at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge.

Coroner Julian Morris said the proceedings, at Southwark Coroner’s Court, had been opened to determine how these babies had died.

Dr Morris said his role was “not to find blame” but to consider whether to provide a report about actions that could be taken to prevent further deaths.

Ms Al-Kharboush gave birth to twin boys by emergency Caesarean section at 32 weeks, and they were then put in intensive care at St Thomas’ Hospital.

She was told that one of the babies was not growing properly.

While in intensive care they were both fed intravenously, meaning they were given a liquid mixture of nutrients directly into their bloodstream, which happens when newborns are unable to eat on their own.

Ms Al-Kharboush says she watched Yousef deteriorate and that he was “not as noisy as normal” and his “breathing did not seem regular”.

She says she was told that Yousef was “not coping as well as he had been” and a scan was taken.

He stopped breathing after a scan, which left Ms Al-Kharboush “distraught”.

Yousef was given antibiotics and appeared to improve for a while, but he died after failing to breathe unaided.

“It was so hard to see our son in pain. I felt useless and could do nothing for him,” she said.

The inquest also heard about the death of one-month-old Oscar Barker, who was born early with his twin at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge.

His mother, Hollie Barker, was told he had “had a bad night” – before he went on to die of multiple organ failure.

Ms Barker said she was later told that a bug had made its way into the feed Oscar was being given, called total parenteral nutrition (TPN). She said she was told that this was very unusual.

A couple of months later, an inspection by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) found the baby feed’s producer, ITH Pharma, had made contaminated products in a one-off isolated incident.

ITH Pharma was ordered to pay £1.2m by a crown court in 2022 and accepted blame for providing infected TPN to 19 premature babies across nine hospitals in 2014.

The pharmaceutical firm described the incident as “wholly exceptional”, noting it had produced TPN since 2008 and helped many thousands of vulnerable babies to survive.

It was suggested at the time that the feed was infected with Bacillus cereus bacterium.

The inquest also heard from the family of Aviva Otte, who died aged three months in January 2014, before the infected batch of TPN was provided to St Thomas’ Hospital by ITH Pharma.

After the hearing on Monday, an ITH Pharma spokesman said: “We offer our deepest sympathies to the families affected by the events of 2014.

“We are committed to assisting the coroner to ensure that the wider circumstances of these three deaths are fully investigated.”

The inquest is due to last three weeks.