Sussex Police are investigating more than a hundred cases of “medical negligence” that led to postoperative complications and deaths of patients.
A surgeon from Sussex University Hospital cut open a patient's chest during an operation with an army folding knife, which he carried with him to work to cut fruit for lunch. He explained his decision to use a knife “from his pocket” by saying he couldn't find a sterile scalpel.
The BBC reports this.
The surgeon's colleagues said his actions were “outside the normal procedures.” According to them, the operation was not so urgent as to require such “extreme” steps.
“I am surprised and horrified by this. Firstly, a folding knife is not sterile. Secondly, it is not an operating instrument. And thirdly, everything necessary should have been in place,” commented the situation former surgeon Professor Graham Poston.
In the case described by the publication, the patient, fortunately, survived. But the surgeon's colleagues in the hospital's internal reports said his actions were “questionable” and his claims about the alleged lack of a scalpel were “very strange.”
Journalists conducted their own investigation and found out that three patients operated on by this surgeon over the past two months died from post-operative complications, despite the fact that the operations were “low-risk.” The findings of the hospital's internal investigation showed that the patients died due to “poor treatment.”
“We still don't understand why my mother died. It seems no one knew that something went wrong during the operation,” said the daughter of one of the deceased patients.
The publication notes that this is far from the first dangerous case in the Sussex University Hospitals network. The police are already investigating at least 105 cases of alleged medical negligence. Some of them may lead to charges of involuntary manslaughter.
Recall that in the Khmelnytsky region, a child was operated on due to an incorrect diagnosis. The head of the surgical department will be tried for improper performance of professional duties.
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