Midwife Found Guilty Of Leaving Four-Day Old-Baby Face-Down In A Cupboard

Yvonne Musonda-Malata will learn tomorrow how she will be sanctioned for the incident at an Essex hospital.

Queens Hospital in Romford

A midwife has been found guilty of leaving a four-day-old baby face-down in a cupboard.

Yvonne Musonda-Malata, 35, failed to provide appropriate clinical care to a baby while working on a night shift at Queen's Hospital in Essex in 2011, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) found.

Musonda-Malata had protested her innocence throughout the hearing, telling the panel: "I did not put the baby in the cupboard at all. At all. I did not."

She had claimed she moved Baby A from its mother’s room so she could sleep and said her matron Sabah Abdin made her fill in an incident form which was untrue.

But a spokesman for the NMC said she will now appear at the hearing again tomorrow, when the panel will have to decide whether she will be punished over the incident.

Colleague Christine Onade had been cleared of all charges against her.

Ms Onade was caught up in the incident after it was alleged she had been spotted taking the baby out of the cupboard.

She will not be required to appear before the hearing again.

Ms Onade had to rush from the hearing room last week after breaking down in tears.

"My life has nosedived into what I can only describe as a nightmare," she sobbed at the time.

"I kept hoping it would be over, but it went from bad to worse."