Woman, 70, dies after operating table breaks
John Carvel, social affairs editor
Friday February 28, 2003
The Guardian
A coroner was last night investigating the death of a 70-year-old woman after an accident during her routine heart surgery when the operating table broke and started sliding away from her astonished surgeons.
The team continued with the operation at Derriford hospital, Plymouth, after summoning extra doctors and nurses to hold steady the £50,000 hi-tech table.
The incident happened on Thursday of last week, the same day that the hospital was facing allegations at an employment tribunal that an orthopaedic surgeon, Godfrey Charnley, was given a dessert spoon instead of a proper instrument to carry out a hip replacement operation.
The woman, who has not been named, died on Sunday. The hospital said her complex operation lasted a little longer because of the table, but the surgeons did not believe that was a cause of her death. She was jolted forward as the table broke, but, said the hospital, she did not fall to the floor.
The cardiac operating table was one of three state-of-the-art pieces bought in 1997 from ALM, a French supplier. After the accident, Paul Roberts, the hospital's chief executive, took all of the tables out of service and cancelled 22 heart operations pending an investigation.
Three new tables were being delivered last night in the expectation that the unit could resume surgery today.
The faulty table was part of a system comprising a trolley to take patients to surgery. The medical devices agency is looking into the possibility that a locking mechanism failed.
Derriford hospital had some of the best clinical results in England for cardiothoracic surgery. The unit was being expanded to reduce the waiting list of 368 patients.
Mr Roberts said: "The top of the operating table became detached. The surgeon immediately asked for help and other staff came over and steadied the table and several more scrubbed up and grabbed [its] corners. The incident rang alarm bells and raised technical concerns about the table."
― Mike Hanle y (mike), Friday, 28 February 2003 06:48 (twenty-two years ago)