Even good doctors can make mistakes
Verdict of tribunal as it rules consultant who decapitated baby during delivery can keep job... without even a warning
A GYNAECOLOGIST who caused an unborn baby to be decapitated in his mother’s womb was told yesterday she could keep her NHS job because ‘even good doctors can make mistakes’.
Dr Vaishnavy Laxman, 43, escaped censure after a medical tribunal said she posed ‘no risk to patient safety’.
The consultant had been found guilty on Monday of several disciplinary charges and criticised for ‘an error of judgment’ following the tragedy on March 16, 2014, at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee.
The hearing was told Dr Laxman should have given the 30-year-old patient an emergency caesarean section as the premature infant was in a breech position.
She instead tried to carry out the 15-minute delivery naturally and urged the mother-to-be, known only as Patient A, to push while Dr Laxman applied traction to the baby’s legs.
The manoeuvre caused the infant’s torso to become detached, leaving the head still in his mother’s womb. Tests showed the youngster was already dead before being decapitated.
Last night, despite pleas by the General Medical Council to impose sanctions on her, the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service said it did not believe Dr Laxman’s fitness to practise medicine was ‘impaired’ by the incident.
It also ruled no warning would be placed on her record. The doctor is currently practising medicine in her native India.
Charles Garside, QC, for the GMC, had earlier told the tribunal: ‘A case of such notoriety and unusualness requires consideration of action being taken on a doctor’s registration to maintain public confidence in the profession and that requires a finding of impaired fitness to practise.
‘When Dr Laxman acted as she did, she was not a junior trainee shoved into an emergency situation and therefore placed out of her depth, but a fully qualified consultant with many years of experience.’
But yesterday panel chairman Tim Bradbury told the Manchester hearing: ‘Although the tribunal found Dr Laxman’s decision to proceed with a vaginal delivery contributed to the decapitation of Baby B after he had died, the tribunal was not satisfied that the decapitation of Baby B would have been reasonably foreseeable to anyone theatre at the time Dr Laxman made her decision to proceed with the vaginal delivery.
‘The failing was not sustained, persistent or repeated, but rather a single error of judgment made in very difficult circumstances.’
Mr Bradbury said that throughout the attempted delivery of Baby B, Dr Laxman believed she was acting in both Patient A’s and Baby B’s best interests.
He added: ‘Dr Laxman has always maintained responsisode. bility for her decision and the actions which followed. She has shown genuine remorse for the traumatic outcome in this case.
‘The tribunal was not satisfied the single negligent act in this case could be characterised as particularly “grave”– therefore, the tribunal was not satisfied that this act crossed the threshold from negligence to “serious” misconduct.
‘The tribunal was satisfied that even good doctors can make mistakes.
‘She has learned from this unfortunate epiin Nothing in this determination should detract from the fact that Dr Laxman made a significant error of judgment which had serious consequences and a profound impact upon Patient A and for which Dr Laxman bears a heavy responsibility.’
Dr Laxman who qualified in Chennai, India, in 1999, denied wrongdoing, saying she believed the baby would have died had a caesarean section been carried out.
Her lawyer Gerard Boyle, QC, said: ‘She made a single wrong decision. The horrific outcome was not foreseeable.’
A spokesman for NHS Tayside said: ‘We have very robust procedures in place when any serious adverse event occurs to ensure any learning is captured and improvements made.’
‘Horrific outcome not foreseeable’ ‘Bears a heavy responsibility’