The police have launched an urgent probe in the practices of surgeons in a hospital in Yorkshire, after the death of 11 patients after routine heart operations.
The BBC Today’s documents say that documents suggest that patients who were treated in the Castle Hill Hospital have suffered avoidable damage – for which Medici were not announced on their death certificates.
The documents increase alarm bells about the care for patients who underwent surgery for a transcatheter Aorta valve implant (TAVI) – a common procedure to replace a damaged valve.
This operation usually lasts about two hours, but a woman spent six hours in an operation, during the course of the place that she lost five liters of blood under local anesthesia.
Her procedure is described as a ‘disaster’.
This test was not mentioned on her death certificate, which simply stated that she died of pneumonia. Her family was also not aware of the complications.
The police investigation is still in the very early stages and no arrests have been made.
After the staff had expressed the concerns that the TAVI dying rate of the Eng high department was high – three times that of the UK average – managers instructed to try out what went wrong.
Tavi, first performed on the NHS in 2007, is safer and less invasive than conventional surgery, but often more expensive. For this reason it is reserved for older patients who are considered too weak to survive an open heart surgery
These details were not made public at the time, whereby patients are completely unaware of the alarmingly high mortality rates.
In 2020, the Royal College of Physicians led a department-wide study in which the TAVI team was active, after the death of two patients.
A year later in 2021, seven heart consultants said they ‘very concerned about the safety and transparency of the TAVI service’, in a last for the director of the hospital – after the death of four more patients in less than six months.
A third evaluation of the death of all 11 patients involved was completed at the beginning of last year – revealing the hair -raising errors of the surgeons involved.
The assessment criticized the ‘clinical decision-making’ of the medical team in every phase of the treatment of a 74-year-old patient and also discovered that crucial details were missing the death certificates of a number of patients.
The TAVI procedure is usually performed in older patients, who are considered unsuitable for open heart surgery.
The procedure includes the insertion of a replacement valve via a catheter through a blood vessel, usually in the thigh or chest.
The catheter is then used to lead the replacement valve over the top of the damaged. This is usually performed under local anesthetic – it means that the patient remains aware.
The assessment also marked how no mitigation had been made for a female patient, 84, who had an increased risk that led to a complication ‘that may be avoided included experienced operators”
The technology has been demonstrated in several studies, both safe and very effective.
Dorothy Redhead, 87, from Driffield, underwent the operation in the summer of 2020, after complaining about breathlessness that doctors brought to a heart condition.
According to her daughter, Christine Rymer, Mrs. Redhead had hoped that it would give her a better quality of life, as an enthusiastic gardener and active member of the community.
But the operation was a ‘disaster’, which eventually resulted in her death a week later.
Pre-operation checks indicated that Mrs. Redhead had a blocked artery in her right leg, which means that the catheter should have been inserted in the left.
The manufacturers of the TAVI device also agreed that access through its judiciary was not suitable.
But on the day of the procedure, Medici wrongly placed the catheter in the patient’s right leg. Instead of stopping at the blockade, when they realized their fault, doctors tried to push the Tavi in her heart three times.
This error put a considerable pressure on the body of the 87-year-old and tore her femoral artery and a large blood vessel in the thigh.
Patients who undergo an open heart surgery usually stay in the hospital for seven days, while those who receive Tavi within just three rooms
At the moment Mrs. Redhead was on the operating table for six hours and lost a dangerous five liters of blood.
An anesthesiologist who was called to help that the fault of the team and the subsequent decision to continue with the procedure ‘resulted in a disaster’.
“A completed plan change without weighing the risks versus benefits for the patient, but with a” having a go “approach because they can save a damage surgically, this patient almost did,” the anesthetist continued.
However, the vascular surgeon on Mrs. Redhead’s case was not even that this was a ‘serious incident’.
“I see no reason to let this decompose a SI,” wrote the surgeon. “These were recognized complications that were expected as a considerable risk.”
However, the hospital decided to continue with the investigation. They initially discovered that the team had worked well and decided that although the death of Mrs. Redhead areas for improvement “these would not have prevented the incident from taking place.”
Mrs. Redhead’s family was not informed of the complications and her death certificate did not report the procedure either.
Her cause of death was mentioned as ‘pneumonia made up in the hospital and serious aortic stosis’ -the condition for which Mrs Redhead was referred.
However, the Royal College of Physician’s report did not agree, and stated that the TAVI procedure led to the death of the patients.
The daughter of Mrs. Redhead, who was not aware of what her mother had experienced, said the BBC: ‘None of that was told us. None of it.
“It just feels like Mama was a guinea pig, which is not nice to think about.”
The most recent report looked at a total of 11 cases, all linked to disasters on the operating table after a TAVI procedure.
Ten of these deaths took place between October 2019 and March 2022, with the remaining death in May 2023.
The consultants emphasized one death, who had previously raised an alarm about the safety and transparency of the TAVI service – they saw ‘alerted to read’ that the coroner was not informed about a serious complication during the operation.
The cause of death was registered as a heart attack.
After he had expressed concern about the death of Mrs. Redhead, Dr. Thanjavur Bragadeesh, the clinical director of the cardiac unit, asked to resign as part of a broader rehearsal of leadership.
He told the BBC that the failures that were identified in the probe demonstrate that he was right to express concerns about the TAVI procedure.
The Humber Health Care Partnership – which runs the hospital – said, “We understand that families can have questions and we are happy to answer them.”
According to the BBC, mortality rates for unity remain above the British national average, despite the fact that the hospital makes improvements after the report.
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