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Musician died after bladder rupture
Coroner rules victim’s death was fifth ‘accidental adverse healthcare event’ at UCLH
A FIFTH person has died from an “accidental adverse healthcare event” at University College London Hospital in the past 12 months, a coroner has ruled.
Desmond Sampson, 79, went into the Euston hospital in July with breathing problems but died two weeks later after his bladder was ruptured.
St Pancras coroner Dr Andrew Reid found at an inquest on Tuesday that Mr Sampson died from abnormal blood clotting, blood loss and a bladder rupture.
It was the fifth time in a month he had ruled that an unexpected medical incident had proven fatal at the hospital.
Earlier in September he ordered a top-level investigation into practices at the hospital following the death of Tracey-Ann Korkmaz, 41, who also died following an “accidental adverse healthcare event,” as did Katherine Blakey, 44, Jack Brown, 76, and Gary Foster, 27.
Hours after Mr Sampson, a Trinidadian guitarist, pianist and songwriter from Brecknock Road, Kentish Town, was fitted with a catheter, he began to urinate blood and his abdomen swelled up with fluid. Doctors said the frail pensioner was so “uncomfortable” they decided to wash out his bladder, which was filled with blood clots, before carrying out a scan.
Dr Nigel Borley, a specialist registrar in urology, who carried out the surgery with the supervision of a consultant, admitted he would have been “cautious” had he known Mr Sampson’s bladder was perforated.
Dr Reid said “evidence suggests perforation occurred before…” surgery, but did not criticise the hospital.
He said Mr Sampson, who had arthritis and amyloid, a protein which caused his bladder to harden, died from an “accidental perforation” of the bladder caused by “unforeseen underly-ing medical problems”.
On Tuesday Mr Sampson’s widow, artist Patricia Mulholland-Sampson, 69, repeatedly quizzed doctors about whether her husband would still be alive had the level of care been different.
She said: “It seemed they didn’t know what they were doing – the doctor was telling the nurse how to do it [insert the catheter]… and from her newly acquired knowledge she told the next nurse.”
She asked pathologist Mary Falzon: “Had it been known [that he had amyloid] would the catheter have been done under more careful conditions?”
Ms Falzon replied: “Even skilled people could have ruptured the bladder. There were a lot of things working against Mr Sampson and they all came together at that one particular time unfortunately.”
A UCLH spokesman said: “Catheterisation was a necessary and entirely appropriate procedure; the coroner did not criticise any aspect of the patient’s treatment at UCLH. The perforation of Mr Sampson’s bladder was as an unintended consequence of the combination of a very rare disease and bladder catheterisation. It was therefore both accidental and adverse but not as a result of incompetence.” |
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