The first of three operations carried out on a 39-year-old woman who had appendicitis “should have been a straightforward procedure” but went wrong, an expert witness told a Medical Council fitness-to-practise committee this morning.
Anthony Peel, a consultant surgeon at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, said that, after the first operation on Martina Sherlock from Ennis, Co Clare, the complications of leakage that occurred could have been attributed to disease in the colon - but there was no disease present.
"In the absence of disease, it is most likely to be the operator," he said.
The mother-of-13 first attended the emergency department at a Co Clare hospital in June 2008 with abdominal pain, but was not diagnosed with appendicitis until November that year and died less than a month later after undergoing three operations in the space of three weeks.
Syed Naqvi, the consultant surgeon who carried out the procedures, is facing 11 allegations of professional misconduct and poor professional performance.
The first operation involved the removal of the appendix mass and part of the colon, which Mr Navqi then joined to the small bowel. After a few days there was leakage and puss coming from the wound.
Mr Peel agreed under cross-examination from Eileen Barrington SC that leakage was a possible complication of the procedure. He said the commonest reason for technical error was that there had not been adequate visibility when the procedure was performed.
