Jury returns open verdict in post-op death
Lisa Turner
(CNS): The jury hearing the inquest into the death of Lisa Anne Turner (61) recorded an “open verdict” Thursday, as they were unable to determine the circumstance that caused her death. The Canadian woman, who had lived in Cayman for many years, died earlier this year just days after an operation to remove a cyst from her ovary. The pathologist found that she had died as a result of post surgical complications but doctors had been unable to determine what caused the complications. In her summary to the jury, Coroner Eileen Nervik said there was no evidence of any injury caused by the operation that could have led to the septic shock that led to her death.
With no direct evidence of the trigger for the septic shock, the coroner said the doctors tried to save her life and she concluded that had all acted professionally. “All the doctors were attentive and appropriate,” she said, before the men and women came back with their decision.
When she gave evidence, Dr Suzanne Muise, the surgeon from the CTMH Doctors Hospital who operated on Turner, said the procedure had gone as expected and that her patient was stable when she was discharged on the night of 10 February following the surgery. But four days later Turner died after she became increasingly unwell over the weekend after the operation.
Doctors speculated that she was suffering from septic shock, possible because of a perforated bowel, but a lack of platelets prevented doctors at the government Cayman Islands Hospital, where she was taken on the Sunday night after the surgery, from taking her back to the operating theater to check, as another surgery would have been fatal.
In her summary Nervik said there was no evidence in the autopsy report that the bowel or anything else was injured, and so the specific cause of Turner’s death remains a mystery.
Category: Local News
Th point is without the surgery she would never have contracted sepsis.
No, the more important point is what level of care did she receive.
Baloney!
She died from sepsis.
One area where many patients are the victims of doctor or hospital staff error is in the area of post operative infection or sepsis. Post-operative infection is a broad term which applies to several types of infections a patient can experience as a consequence of undergoing surgery. These infections can be caused by several sources including:
Failure to sterilize surgical site
Failure to administer pre-operative antibiotics
Failure to use sterile instruments during surgery.
WHY SHOULD SURGERY BE THE LAST RESORT https://peterdobias.com/blogs/blog/11015133-why-should-surgery-be-the-last-resort
If her bowels were not damaged during surgery, then the infection must have come from somewhere inside the operating theatre. (Medical instruments or through A/C vents etc…)
About 30 years ago there was a case at our Govt Hospital where a lady died from an infection following surgery. It was later determined that the infection likely came through the A/C vents, of which the operating room was next to the onsite sewage plant. (older hospital back in those days)
Govt had to settle the case with the family for a significant pay out.
The biggest shocker from this tragic story, is that Lisa was 61. I would have guessed early forties maybe. Incredible.
Exactly! I thought it was a typo in the first story that came out, maybe 51 at the outside most.
WHY were there no platelets available?
They only have a shelf life of a few days.
The CI Hospital Blood Bank canvases a very narrow spectrum of prospective pubic blood donors discriminating based on USA disqualifying criteria. The BSE/vCJD/Mad Cow incubation caution is a major discriminator – based on an academic theory of decades of possible incubation and a re-emergence that has never manifested – it blocks anyone who resided in the UK or Europe for 6mos or more between 1980-1996. Tattoos, male-centric homophobia further restrict donor eligibility.
Many of the hospital staff and “emergency” volunteers are regularly hit up for donations when it gets dire. With the onset of Shetty hospital, they are now providing blood products to several different operating theaters across the island – including elective surgeries with no disincentive to conserve blood. Consequently, they are almost always in a state of unadvertised shortage.
A liver transplant patient, on average, will need 6-10 units of red blood cells, 20 units of plasma and 10 units of platelets
A kidney transplant patient, on average, will need one – two units of red blood cells.
A heart transplant patient, on average, will need four – six units of red blood cells.
An open-heart surgery patient, on average, will need two – six units of red blood cells, two – four units of plasma and one – 10 units of platelets
You can then begin to imagine how Health City is impacting our 100% public donor blood supplies.
Moooo
This sort of thing is terrible. What makes it far worse is that the laws of this nation were changed to deny fair compensation to victims of medical negligence or their families in cases of death as part of hawking the island out to Shetty. Time to change the law back now.
An elective surgery hospital that used-up the platelets!
You are using the word “elective” to almost imply that the Shetty Hospital is doing nose jobs and face lifts, rather than life changing or life saving procedures.
But why did the law need to be changed to under-compensate the victims of medical negligence at non-Shetty institutions?
Who was looking after her post surgery?
My personal experience of post operation care in George Town hospital was abysmal.
Definition of Open verdict: a verdict of a coroner’s jury affirming the occurrence of a SUSPICIOUS death but not specifying the cause
It means that the cause could not be determined and not that there wasn’t one.
Why has nobody answered the fundamental question of why it took so long and so much deterioration before Lisa was considered an emergency given she was a post-surgery patient in considerable pain?
YES! And with a fever the day after surgery that was ignored by her doctor when they spoke by phone. Is there an issue with infection from unsterile operating instruments? Second young woman to die of an infection just days after gynecological day surgery.
The Doctor involved at CTMH was also previously removed from duties for deaths under her watch involving babies a few years ago.
Nationality?
Canadian!
But married to a big name Caymanian.
So Caymanian is the correct and explanatory answer. Only a nativist bigot would say otherwise.
I posted somewhere else about this but please women who want to have children: ask around who to avoid. Needs to be said on this island sadly enough.