BRITISH HOSPITAL WORKER HELD IN NEWBORN DEATHS.

Police probing deaths of 17, and 15 who fell ill

LONDON • Police on Tuesday arrested a “health care professional” on suspicion of murdering eight babies and attempting to kill six other infants as part of “Operation Hummingbird,” an inquiry into the sudden and unexplained deaths of 17 babies at a top-tier public hospital in Britain.

The female suspect worked at the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital south of Liverpool.

Detectives were brought into the case following the mysterious deaths of 17 babies at the hospital between March 2015 and July 2016, alongside 15 “non-fatal collapses.”

The hospital asked police to “rule out unnatural causes of death.”

Police said they are searching an address in Chester as part of the investigation. Around a mile away from the hospital, a large police presence was at a house.

Neighbours said a woman lived at the address, having moved in around two years ago.

After the spike in deaths the hospital stopped delivering babies before 32 weeks of pregnancy, transferring the expectant mothers to other hospitals.

Before police were called in, a review by the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health found staffing gaps at the hospital for high-dependency and some intensive care patients but no definitive explanation for the baby deaths.

“Asking the police to look into this was not something we did lightly, but we need to do everything we can to understand what has happened here and get the answers we and the families so desperately want,” said Ian Harvey, medical director at Countess of Chester Hospital.

“We are continuing to support Cheshire Police with their ongoing investigation,” he added in a statement, noting the hospital supports the equivalent to a “Level 1 Special Care Baby Unit.”

“We are confident the unit is safe to continue in its current form,” Harvey said.

Police released few details about the ongoing investigation, which began in May 2017 following a spike in baby deaths at the hospital but said they are working alongside doctors and medical experts to understand the causes of death.

“This is an extremely difficult time for all the families and it is important to remember that, at the heart of this, there are a number of bereaved families seeking answers as to what happened to their children,” said Cheshire Police Detective Inspector Paul Hughes, who is in charge of the investigation.

Hughes called the investigation “highly complex and very sensitive” and said his detective team was doing “everything we possibly can to try to establish in detail what has led to these baby deaths and collapses.”