Controversial baby dies

Press, 7 December 1987, Page 1

Controversial baby dies

NZPA-Reuter Birmingham A British hole-in-the-heart baby, catapulted into political and legal controversy when his vital surgery was postponed five times, died yesterday, 10 days after finally receiving treatment, a hospital spokeswoman said. David Barber, aged eight weeks, who was bom with a defective heart valve, died with his mother at his side just hours before he was due to leave hospital and return home. Doctors had said he was recovering well from his surgery. David became the centre of a political storm over long delays in the nationalised health service when Birmingham Children’s Hospital kept postponing his surgery 'because of a shortage of qualified nurses and a queue of urgent cases. His parents brought a court case to try to force doctors to operate but were turned down. The Court of Appeal also refused to intervene.

' The Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, said in Parliament two weeks ago that she hoped David would be operated on as quickly as possible. Surgery went ahead the next day. Mrs Thatcher was told of David’s death in Copenhagen, where she is attending the European Community summit, and extended her “deepest sympathy” to the family. The Birmingham Coroner said that David died of natural causes connected with his heart defect and there was no evidence to suggest the death was because of the delay in surgery. David was put on a ventilator in intensive care after his condition deteriorated suddenly overnight. His distraught father, Philip Barber, said, “He was coming home today. He has had his operation and he’s coming home today. Then in the space of two hours he’s gone from ill to critical to dead.”