Man who died after prostate surgery was victim of medical misadventure

THE Dublin county coroner has recorded a verdict of death by medical misadventure at an inquest into the death of a man who died the day after a routine prostate operation was performed at a private Co Kildare hospital.

John Higgins, 75, of Alanwood Middle, Naas, Co Kildare, died at Tallaght Hospital, Dublin, on the morning of October 16, 2007, the day after undergoing a transurethral resection of the prostrate (TURP) — a common procedure during which a section of an enlarged prostate is removed — at Clane Hospital, Co Kildare.

An inquest at Dublin county coroner’s court into Mr Higgins’s death heard that the procedure performed by Dr John Thornhill on October 15 was uneventful and later that day Mr Higgins was taken to theatre for a wash-out due to a blood-stained catheter.

By the time Dr Thornhill and anaesthetist Dr Paul McDonagh left at about 7.30pm, both doctors were happy he was stable and doing well after the procedure.

Mr Higgins remained stable until approximately 8.45pm when he became very distressed and agitated with a pain score of 10 out of 10.

Over time he experienced a drop in blood pressure and a low temperature.

He was not again seen by a doctor until 11.40pm when Dr McDonagh arrived at the facility, having been contacted by one of two nurses who were working the night shift at the facility.

There was no doctor at the hospital overnight, although the nurses did make contact with both Dr McDonagh and Dr Thornhill by phone on a few occasions over the course of the night and both doctors were available to come to the facility, the court heard.

Upon arrival at the hospital Dr McDonagh found Mr Higgins was unresponsive due to morphine and bleeding from his bladder.

Mr Higgin’s condition was “up and down” throughout the night and there was only a limited supply of blood-clotting products available to Dr McDonagh from the Naas lab. Mr Higgins was brought to the operating theatre to be put on respiratory support at 4.30am and was later transferred to Tallaght Intensive Care Unit by ambulance.

By the time he arrived at Tallaght there was nothing doctors could do for him. He suffered three heart attacks there and died at 12.30pm on October 16.

A postmortem by Dr Barbara Loftis found that Mr Higgins, who had been in good health prior to the operation — aside from mild heart disease — died of multi-organ failure caused by a clotting problem following a TURP procedure.

Dr McDonagh agreed with the coroner, Dr Kieran Geraghty, that Mr Higgins would have been better off having “such an operation” in a general hospital than in a hospital like Clane in the event of complications arising.

The coroner said he would write to the Department of Health and request an assessment of Clane Hospital by an accrediting body attached to the department.