The "best healthcare system in the world" is an accomplice, and the "devil nurse" kills 7 babies | hospitals | system

Source Global Figures

Author: Mao Yufei

The Countess Chester Hospital in the UK is as busy as many hospitals in the UK, but unlike many other hospitals, there was a poisoned person working there in the neonatal care room.

In 2020, British nurse Lucy Leiby's alleged murder of a baby shocked the world. On August 21, 2023, the court finally ruled on the case: from June 2015 to June 2016, Leby murdered 7 infants and attempted to kill another 6 infants, and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Compared to three years ago, the media has revealed more details, and the story behind it is chilling.

The sweet smile of the "Grim Reaper"

33 year old Libby is the serial killer in modern British history who kills the most babies. And investigator Evans told the media, "Libby appears to be just an ordinary nurse, with good professional skills and not particularly outstanding. We didn't find anything outstanding or shocking about her."

·Leby.

Leby grew up in a middle-class community in Herefordshire, England and was the only child in the family. Her parents are both businessmen from affluent families. Leby chose the nursing profession according to her own interests and vowed to become a pediatric nurse. My parents are very supportive of my daughter doing what she likes and even bought her a small villa near the school, making it more convenient and safe for her to go to and from school.

After graduation, Libby successfully obtained a nursing qualification and entered the Countess Chester Hospital. For Leby, being loved by her parents, living a prosperous life, and having a smooth academic journey, there is really no worries. On social media, Libby is a happy and smiling girl. In a photo, she is holding a baby with a sweet smile. Leby was also selected by the hospital as a publicity ambassador to raise funds from the public through the media for building wards.

·Libby is holding the baby.

Before Leby joined, Countess Chester Hospital had less than three infant deaths per year. In the summer of 2015, three infants died within two weeks.

Bradley, the chief consultant of the hospital's neonatology department, was the first to feel uneasy about this. He convened a meeting with the pediatric and nursing directors and found that there was always one nurse on duty on the day of the baby's death, and that was Libby. But they did not associate the death of the baby with Leby, thinking it was just an unfortunate coincidence. Breley later recalled, "I remember saying that at the time, 'Oh, it can't be her, it can't be the kind Libby.'"

·Brelly.

In October 2015, two more babies died. During this period, there have been more critically ill babies in the hospital. The emergency bell kept ringing, and the baby's symptoms came inexplicably. What is even more suspicious is that on the day of the deaths and illnesses of these babies, there was still a person's name prominently written on the duty table - Libby.

Bradley realized that something was wrong. In March 2016, he once again notified the pediatric director and nursing director to hold an emergency meeting, "We must talk about Leby again!" However, hospital executives believed that the baby had only died naturally and allowed Leby to continue working in the neonatal care room.

More and more nurses are becoming aware of Leby's abnormality. One day, nurse Walker heard the emergency bell ring, and the oxygen level of the baby that Libby was responsible for taking care of rapidly decreased. She wanted to call a doctor, but Libby insisted, "There's no need to ask for help." Walker later recalled, "You can't believe it. It was from a nurse's mouth."

The hospital staff were all saddened by the consecutive deaths of babies, but it didn't affect Leby's mood at all. Another nurse said, "She still comes to work with bright sunshine every day."

Killing by injecting air

Braley realized the seriousness of the situation and proposed to the hospital's senior management to immediately dismiss Leby. The hospital has transferred Libby to the Risk and Patient Safety Office to work as a secretary.

But when Bradley called the police, the hospital's senior management refused again, citing absurd reasons - "This will affect the hospital's reputation." In order to explain to the families of the deceased, the hospital's board of directors launched a small-scale investigation and concluded that the infant's death was due to poor management, untimely rescue, and had nothing to do with specific individuals. The board of directors also summoned several advisors, including Bradley, to apologize to Leby.

Some of them apologized, while others insisted on finding the truth. Under their push, the police finally intervened in the investigation in 2017.

·Leby.

In 2018 and 2019, Leby was arrested twice and subsequently released on bail. After being arrested for the third time in November 2020, more and more people became aware of her crimes.

After this trial, the media disclosed many details of Leby's crime.

Once, when Libby attempted to murder a pair of twin boys, the victim's mother happened to go to the hospital room to visit her newborn child. These twins are premature babies, and Libby is their designated caregiver. That night, the mother saw Libby injecting something into her child, with blood flowing from the baby's mouth and an extremely painful expression. Libby comforted the mother and said, "Believe me, I'm a nurse." She then urged her to return to her own ward. She followed suit.

That night, one of the twin boys died from excessive bleeding, and a doctor said he had never seen a baby bleed so much.

Leby also attempted to murder a 23-week-old baby girl. This baby girl was born in another hospital and weighed only 510 grams. She was later transferred to Countess Chester Hospital and her vital signs gradually stabilized. But three weeks later, the baby girl suddenly vomited and showed signs of infection.

The prosecution found that Leby had fed a large amount of milk to the baby girl at the time, causing her to vomit uncontrollably. The family members were not at ease and transferred the baby back to the hospital where she was born, which resulted in a significant improvement. But a few months later, the MRI results showed that the baby girl suffered irreversible brain damage.

To kill another baby, Libby "did it four times in total.". She injected air into the blood and stomach of a baby girl, which was discovered by other on duty nurses on the first three occasions. "I saw Libby standing at the entrance of the baby girl's room, her face pale. I turned on the light and found that the baby girl was breathing very weakly. The doctors immediately came in and the rescue was successful," the nurse recalled during the trial.

After three failures, Leby took action for the fourth time. One morning, the emergency bell rang again, and the nurse found Leby next to the incubator. The baby had stopped breathing.

The mother of this baby girl later shared such a detail. "When she was bathing her recently deceased child," Libby walked into the room with a smile, talking about how she used to wipe this small body and how much the baby liked her. The mother took out a card. This was later sent to her by Libby, filled with condolences and sympathy.

However, after the incident, the evidence collected by the police revealed another side of Leby. She left a note that read: "I am a terrible demon, I intentionally killed them because I am not good enough to take care of them." The police also found that after the crime, Libby would search for the accounts of the parents of the murdered babies on social media, peeping into their lives, seemingly seeking pleasure from the sadness of those parents.

·Libby wrote on the note, "I am a demon."

I don't know if Leby deliberately concealed it, or if there were two severed sides hidden in his personality. Upon closer examination, it was chilling.

Cold treatment leads to tragedy

The prosecutor's summary of Leby's modus operandi is simply outrageous: she injects air into the blood vessels or nasal tubes of newborn babies, injects insulin into weak babies, or feeds them excessive amounts of milk.

During the trial, Libby, who was facing the charges, cried loudly to defend herself: "I never tried to harm these babies, just wanted to take care of them." She accused "the ward staff of being unsafe," and "four doctors conspired" to blame herself for the hospital's mistake. According to British media reports, "Before conclusive evidence is available, these arguments are pale and powerless."

·Leby cried to defend himself.

Dr. He Sopi, a PhD in anthropology from the University of Wisconsin and a blogger on the Myrrh Garden public account, told Global Times that because Libby refused to plead guilty, the police could not obtain the true motive for the crime from her mouth. The prosecution has proposed several possible motives:

"Firstly, Libby is bored; secondly, she is playing God; thirdly, she is seeking stimulation. These three points all point to antisocial personality, or perhaps Libby has personality disorders. These people harm others only as pranks, just like some people abuse small animals, seeking stimulation and becoming addicted to it."

"The prosecution also raised a fourth possibility. They learned from the text message records that Leby had an ambiguous relationship with a married doctor. Once the baby was in critical condition, the doctor would be called to the scene as one of the doctors. Therefore, the most terrifying speculation is that Leby hoped to use the baby's death to attract the doctor's attention. However, Leby denied the ambiguous relationship with the doctor."

On August 21st, Leby was sentenced to life imprisonment. Judge Goss, who is in charge of this case, characterized it as "a series of cruel and carefully planned murders involving the smallest and most vulnerable children. Your actions are full of almost sadistic malice, and you have no remorse. There is no mitigating factor in this case, and you will spend the rest of your life in prison."

After hearing the verdict, the parents of the victimized baby cried uncontrollably. A father angrily said, "Libby has ruined our lives, and my hatred towards her will never disappear." Another mother expressed her hope that Libby can live long, "so that she can suffer and feel guilty for her actions every day.".

After the trial, some netizens also called for the UK to restore the death penalty. Leby's life imprisonment is the harshest punishment in the UK criminal justice system. Previously, only two women had been sentenced to this criminal law. One of them murdered at least 9 girls in the 1970s and 1980s, while the other murdered 3 men in 2013. A British netizen commented, "I'm afraid Leby won't feel guilty for the rest of his life because his hands are covered in blood."

The Leby case even alarmed British Prime Minister Sunak. When the judge pronounced the verdict, Leby refused to leave prison to attend the trial. Sunak believes that committing a terrible crime without facing the victim or hearing the harm caused to the victim and their relatives is a sign of cowardice. Sunak also stated that the government is considering amending the law to force criminals to attend sentencing hearings.

Some foreign media believe that Sunak's statement is too evasive and light hearted, "highlighting the problems in medical services in this case.".

·The New York Times' report on the Libby case directly points to internal issues within the NHS.

Since the trial, doctors at the Countess Chester Hospital have come forward to report the hospital's top management. These doctors have reminded management at least 5 times about the link between Leby and infant mortality, but have been kept off guard by hospitals. The evidence in court also shows that the neonatology department of the hospital has been plagued by personnel shortages and environmental chaos. "If timely measures were taken to regulate medical equipment, this could have been a tragedy that could have been avoided."

This is not a problem for any hospital in the UK. The Leby case once again pushed the British National Health System to the forefront of public opinion.

The National Health Service in the UK was established in 1948 and bears the responsibility of ensuring public healthcare for all, making it the largest welfare expenditure of the UK government. The UK once took pride in the NHS, calling it the "best healthcare system in the world". However, due to the impact of COVID-19, high inflation and the wrong market-oriented reform policy adopted by the British government, NHS has already been overwhelmed.

·Countess Chester Hospital.

The Times analyzed that "healthcare capacity in the UK is continuously deteriorating." Between 2009 and 2019, available hospital beds in England and Wales decreased by 8.3% and 14.9%, respectively. Statistics also show that the number of UK patients queuing for more than 12 hours in the emergency department reached a record high of 1.65 million last year. The criticism and dissatisfaction of the British public towards the chaotic and inefficient NHS management are increasing day by day.

The scandal of "deadly hospitals" has been repeatedly exposed. On May 23rd last year, a nurse at Birmingham Children's Hospital was suspected of poisoning a child patient, resulting in the child's death. A survey report in March last year pointed out serious negligence in maternal health at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals under the NHS Fund, resulting in over 200 infant deaths and 9 maternal deaths between 2000 and 2019, and habitually shifting responsibility onto mothers.

In 2013, then British Prime Minister Cameron personally apologized for the Stafford Hospital scandal. Subsequently, the British government repeatedly promised to expand investigations into the entire healthcare system, but tragedies continued to occur one after another.

In places that were supposed to treat illnesses and save lives, nurses and doctors became demons, syringes and surgical knives became weapons, and "hospitals that take lives" became accomplices.