A doctor is accused of failing to spot the signs that Baby P was being abused and is due before the General Medical Council (GMC) charged with misconduct.
According to the BBC, Dr Sabah Al-Zayyat saw 17-month-old Peter Connelly at St. Ann’s Hospital in Haringuey days before his death in 2007.
She is accused of failing to carry out an “adequate examination” investigating his injuries, or admit him to hospital. The GMC could take the decision to ban her from working in the UK.
Baby Peter died in 2007 at his home in Edmonton, North London. A post-mortem examination found that he had suffered multiple injuries. He had received 60 visits from authorities.
The prosecution at the trial of two men who were imprisoned for their role in Baby Peter’s death heard that Baby Peter was likely to have already suffered many injuries, including a broken back and ribs, before Dr Al-Zayyat examined him two days before his death. She noted only bruises on his face, body and back but did not carry out a full examination as the child was “miserable and cranky”. She denied that the baby could have had a broken back at this point.
The GMC hearing will look at whether Dr Al-Zayyat failed to diagnose abuse.
The question which comes out of this is, if it is found that Dr Zayyat did not properly diagnosed Baby Peter, could his death have been prevented? Social services would surely have been alerted to the gravity of his injuries and he would have been taken out of that environment. Let’s not lay all the blame at the doctor’s door though, remember social services visited Baby Peter 60 times and failed to pick up on the abuse that he was suffering. It may well be that it was a continuity of errors which caused Baby Peter’s death.
