‘Bossy’ midwife who told a new mother that ‘terrorists could poison formula milk’ in bid to persuade her to breastfeed instead is struck off
- Anna Semenenko made remark to persuade new mother to breastfeed her baby
- She was struck off over allegations about her conduct between 2015 and 2019
A ‘bossy’ midwife who told a new mother that terrorists could poison formula milk in a bid to persuade her to breastfeed has been struck off.
Anna Semenenko, 59, who qualified in Leningrad in 1995, was struck off this month over allegations about her competence and conduct between 2015 and 2019, the Mirror reports.
Ms Semenenko denied the findings of the Nursing and Midwifery Council and claims she has been targeted for being Russian.
The council said her comment about terrorists poisoning formula milk was ‘highly inappropriate’ and that she was trying to influence the new mother with ‘false and misleading information’.
Anna Semenenko, 59, (pictured) told a new mother that terrorists could poison formula milk in a bid to persuade her to breastfeed
She also embarrassed another patient by commenting on her ‘pretty’ private parts, before she went on to use the patient’s phone to take pictures of the stitching for no clinical reason, the panel heard.
She was also accused of telling a mother during during an examination that her husband must have ‘a very small penis as you are very tense’.
Furthermore, the council found her to have pressured a patient into allowing her partner to watch her giving birth – and later joked she would get ’10 male doctors’ to give the woman her stitches.
Staff said she told another patient at the Royal Gwent and Nevill Hall NHS hospitals in south Wales: ‘I am Anya, I am Russian. If you don’t like that I can get another midwife.’
The ban Ms Semenenko received showed the ‘seriousness of the misconduct found’, the panel further said.
Staff said she told another patient at the Royal Gwent and Nevill Hall NHS hospitals in south Wales: ‘I am Anya, I am Russian. If you don’t like that I can get another midwife’ (File image)
At her home in Talbot last night, the midwife said she would appeal and ‘apply to the High Court for wrongful dismissal’.
She told the Mirror: ‘I have 25 years’ experience and have delivered 2,000 babies. I’ve always had satisfactory work assessments. Yet I have been made to look like a monster.’
She claims she was told to not tell patients she was Russian after she joined the Royal Gwent Hospital in 2015. There, she allegedly had to endure jokes about being a KGB agent, drinking vodka and carrying novichok.
She was suspended in June 2018 and sacked for gross misconduct in July 2019 after complaints she signed off notes for a doctor without checking them, to which she said: ‘I think this is about discrimination because I am Russian. And, yes, I am quite bossy.’
Joe Cooray, Ms Semenenko’s legal adviser, has made applications to the panel ‘alleging, among other things, contempt of court, evidence tampering and the presenting of forged documents’.
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