Islington News: Diane Elizabeth Jane Abroka | Whittington Hospital | Slough | Death

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Islington Tribune - by CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS
Published: 19 September 2008

Obese patient died after operation to cut weight

AN obese woman who was unable to lose weight died after a last-ditch operation to reduce her stomach, an inquest has heard.
Diane Elizabeth Jane Abroka, 46, died in November last year from blood poisoning a week after a gastric bypass operation at Whittington Hospital in Archway.
Ms Abroka, from Slough, Berkshire, weighed more than 21 stones and had a liver weighing half a stone.
She agreed to the operation – which has a mortality rate of one in every 100 patients, according to medical figures – because she was unable to lose weight.
She died after the stitches used to sew up her intestines following the surgery split, leaking deadly gastric fluids into her blood.
Whittington doctors told the St Pancras inquest this week that they were helpless to save the unemployed divorcée and were forced to watch her die.
Pratik Sufi, a specialist in obesity surgery, told the inquest Ms Abroka was too weak to be treated. “She did not stabilise and continued to deteriorate,” said Mr Sufi. “If I had taken her back to theatre it would have been inevitable death. She was never safe enough to treat and unfortunately passed away.”
Pathologist Professor Sebastian Lucas, of Guy’s Hospital in Southwark, said her death was fundamentally caused by morbid obesity but was clinically the result of “two or three perforations of the bowel caused by gastric bypass surgery”.
Coroner Dr Andrew Reid accepted the expert evidence and ruled that Ms Abroka died from “an accidental adverse healthcare event as a complication of bariatric surgery”.
He added: “She was very keen to undergo the surgery and felt there was nothing she could do to lose weight. Unfortunately, in this case the surgery was complicated by the post-operative complications or risks associated with this kind of surgery.
“It was intended to reduce her weight. The unintended consequence was that the area of surgery would perforate and lead to complications.”
Speaking after the inquest, the dead woman’s former brother-in-law, Simon Lowe, said he had no complaints about the hospital and described the tragedy as “colossal bad luck”.

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