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Twins arrive after mother is sent to four hospitals
Anna Davis15 Dec 2008
A PREGNANT woman was ferried between four hospitals to give birth to premature twins, only to have them split up as soon as they were born.
Angela Breeds and her partner Lee Taylor are now visiting their twins at different hospitals because they could not be cared for together.
It is another blow for the couple, who were sent to four hospitals in five days before their twins Suzie and Sonny were born.
Miss Breeds, 30, said: “I'm just so angry about being pushed around everywhere. Then when I found out they had to be separated I was completely gutted. I can't believe we are still smiling through everything that's happened. But it's either that or crying.”
The family's ordeal started on 3 December when doctors at King's College Hospital told Miss Breeds she needed a Caesarean because one of the twins was not getting enough nutrition.
She was transferred 31 miles to Basildon Hospital that night for the operation. But after she arrived she was told the hospital did not have the right facilities for the procedure, so she was sent to Peterborough Hospital in Cambridgeshire, 96 miles away.
Miss Breeds, from Stanford-le-Hope, Essex, waited in the hospital for three days before being told surgeons could not perform the operation either.
She was then transferred to Whipps Cross Hospital in east London, 86 miles away, finally giving birth last Monday.
The babies were nine weeks premature, with Suzie weighing two-and-a-half pounds and Sonny just two pounds. Because Sonny was in a more critical condition than his sister, he was taken to a specialist neonatal unit at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel.
Miss Breeds, a hairdresser, said: “It takes about an hour to get from our home to Whipps Cross then another hour to get to Whitechapel. It's very tiring.”
Miss Breeds's mother Barbara, 55, said: “Something that should have been one of the happiest days in our lives was totally ruined by all the travel and stress involved.”
A spokeswoman for Whipps Cross Hospital said the twins are due to be reunited at Whipps Cross today.
Reader views (2)
Shocking but not surprising. Sue them - it really is the only language they understand.
- David In London, London, 15/12/2008 21:17
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...Welcome to the 21st Century NHS centres for excellence...
- Joannie, London, England, 15/12/2008 15:57
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