And as I closed the dead child’s head I had to think about what to tell the waiting family. I had dragged myself up to the children’s ward, where the mother was waiting to see me. She would not have been expecting to hear this catastrophic news. I had found it very difficult to talk, but managed to convey what had happened. I had no idea how she might react, but she reached out to me and held me in her arms and consoled me for my failure, even though it was she who had lost her daughter.
