Robot surgeon hit nurse as op ‘spiralled out of control’
Doctors rowed amid string of errors that led to patient’s death
A PIONEERING robotic heart operation ‘spiralled out of control’ after the machine’s arms hit a nurse and two surgeons began shouting at each other, an inquest heard.
A series of catastrophic errors were made after ‘significant tension’ developed between the lead surgeon and his assisting surgeon.
A coroner’s court was told communication between Sukumaran Nair and Thasee Pillay ‘completely broke down’ and that they struggled to hear each other because Mr Nair’s head was inside a robotic console.
Stephen Pettitt, 69, suffered multiple organ failure days after undergoing Britain’s first robot procedure to repair a mitral valve, which stops blood flowing the wrong way in the heart.
During the operation at Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital, the coroner heard, Mr Pillay had shouted at Mr Nair after he knocked a scrub nurse with the arms of the Da Vinci robot he was operating.
Giving evidence yesterday, Mr Pillay said: ‘Communication is challenging... the rest of the theatre has difficulty hearing the robotic operator. Mr Nair’s head was in a robotic console and his voice was through a microphone which is very tinny.
‘There were a few times when I raised my voice. One was when the sutures were criss-crossed. The second was when my theatre scrub nurse was knocked a few times by the arms of the robot.’
The inquest has heard how tension mounted when the robot stitched the heart incorrectly.
The surgeons called for help from two proctors – experts in the robot system trained to take over in a crisis – only to find they had left without telling anyone.
Recalling the chaotic operation in February 2015, Anthony George, an anaesthetist at the hospital, said there was ‘significant tension’ between the two surgeons.
He said they used the wrong type of blood sucker on Mr Pettitt – meaning his blood was flushed away instead of being re-circulated, causing his blood pressure to drop. Mr George added: ‘The sutures were completely tangled up and there was significant blood loss. It was at this point the case spiralled out of control.
‘The communication between the surgeons broke down. At that point we should have abandoned the robotic procedure.’
The Da Vinci robot was eventually removed when its camera became ‘blinded by blood’.
The inquest heard the tension between the two surgeons culminated in them swapping positions so that Mr Pillay, the assistant, took charge of the robot. Mr Pillay then stitched up Mr Pettitt’s heart with conventional surgery, despite never having performed the procedure before in a live operation.
The music teacher and father of three, from Tyne and Wear, died three days later.
Mr Nair later told a colleague he ‘could have done with some more dry-run training’ and admitted he was ‘running before he could walk’ by performing the operation, the inquest has heard.
He said he did not attend a training session by the robot’s makers at the hospital because he was too busy with other surgery.
The inquest continues.