“This comment was originally made on Facebook by Michele… It’s not often we read an account from someone with first hand experience on the Countess of Chester neonatal unit.”

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“The manager was downgraded from a band 8a to a band 7. She was humiliated & demoralised. When she left, the job was not externally advertised, but Eirean Powell, who was a band 6, was appointed & given a band 7.

The 2 band 7 sisters: one was given early retirement & the other was side-lined into another department. A band 6 was told there was no job for her, having trained for 2 years, to be an advanced neonatal nurse practitioner, so she left. Another band 6 left as there was no career structure.

I was the ANNP (Advanced Neonatal Nurse Practitioner) & I was served compulsory redundancy.

You cannot run a neonatal unit with no experienced senior staff .
The consultants never came near unless they had a ward round or were called to see a sick baby . The junior doctors were not career paediatricians but GP trainees .

The babies who died were not well babies as portrayed. Some of them had infections, they were premature & multiple births which makes them vulnerable.

The unit was not fit for purpose, the drains were constantly blocking, there was sewage – all of which increased the risk of infection. One time we had an outbreak of black flies & an exterminator had to be called.

Lucy was one of only 3 full time staff & she was working extra shifts (one week she worked 60 hours ) so statistically she would be on duty when babies became ill.

She is compared to Harold Shipman who was a pethidine addict who was getting his patients to change their wills in favour of him, all his victims died of diamorphine overdoses.

Beverly Allitt had a serious personality disorder, she was not popular, an odd person, her victims all died of insulin poisoning & she was caught with insulin.

Lucy doesn’t fit any of these profiles, she was popular, hard working.

A serial killer does not change their MOD – so Lucy is using air embolism, insulin, dislodging ET tubes…. ?

None of it makes sense. I truly believe she is innocent”

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