A mother
who gave birth to a baby conceived naturally after years of failed
fertility treatment died in hospital after refusing a blood transfusion
because she was a Jehovah’s Witness.
According to London Evening Satndard, Adeline Keh, 40, became critically ill after her son Mawsi was
delivered by caesarean section at the Homerton hospital. She died three
weeks later in another hospital after refusing potentially life-saving
treatment.
Today her husband told of his grief that “we never came
home as a family” as it emerged that the case was one of four maternal
deaths in eight months involving the Homerton.
The hospital, in
Hackney, has asked NHS England to review the deaths to check for any
evidence of common failures in care. The review is expected to be
completed next month.
Speaking for the first time since his wife’s
death, Kwaku Keh told the Standard: “My wife and I were best friends.
We had been trying to have a baby for some time but it had not happened
for us even with the help of IVF.
Best friends: Adeline Keh with her husband Kwaku
“Then in 2013 my wife got pregnant without medical intervention and our
only son was delivered by caesarean section. I was overjoyed and could
not wait for them to come home.”
Mrs Keh remained in hospital
after her son’s birth on September 18 last year to receive antibiotics
for an infection. She developed acute respiratory distress syndrome and
was transferred to Papworth, a specialist heart and lung hospital in
Cambridge.
She had told doctors of her refusal to receive blood
products, and lawyers confirmed her wishes had to be obeyed. She was put
on a machine at Papworth but it could not effectively re-oxygenate her
blood without a transfusion. She died two days later.
An inquest
last month found Mrs Keh died on October 19 last year from a combination
of ARDS, sepsis, an infection in the caesarean wound and “refusal of
transfusion on religious grounds”.
Coroner Belinda Cheney, in a
narrative verdict, said Mrs Keh died from a “rare infective
complication”. The source of the infection had been impossible to detect
until the post-mortem and the decision not to receive blood “may have
compromised the final medical intervention”.
Mr Keh, a
lawyer living in Walthamstow, said: “Each time I went to pick her up
[from the Homerton] I was told that she could not come home. Eventually
my wife lost her fight and passed away and we never got to come home as a
family.”
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