My beautiful wife died in a routine test. . . can’t the NHS just say sorry?
A HEARTBROKEN husband has condemned a hospital after a series of blunders during a routine test left his wife dead.
Stewart Jones is furious that the Princess Alexandra in Essex has still not apologised for the loss of his wife Kate, a devoted mother of four.
Mrs Jones, 35, visited the hospital in Harlow in 2013 for an angiogram to check for narrowing of her arteries. But errors by medical staff triggered two heart attacks, the second of which proved fatal.
‘I took my wife to hospital for a test that we thought was perfectly safe and I went home a widower,’ said Mr Jones, 48. Although the hospital later reached a £700,000 out-of-court settlement with the family, Mr Jones said the lack of apology had ‘made everything so much worse’.
His wife, a beautician, was sent for an angiogram after suffering minor heart palpitations. Despite being young and fit, she had a higher risk of heart disease due to an inherited form of high cholesterol.
Angiograms are performed more than 100,000 times each year and involve doctors inserting a wire into the heart through an artery in the groin. Once in place, a dye is released which shows up potential blockages when X-rayed.
But the doctor performing Mrs Jones’s procedure accidentally tore a major artery while inserting the wire, causing her heart to stop.
While rare, such incidents are usually rectifiable, and the doctor managed to restart her heart.
But, crucially, there was a 15minute delay in calling for a consultant, during which time her condition had deteriorated. When the consultant cardiologist finally arrived, there was a problem inserting a new wire to repair the i njured artery to improve blood flow and Mrs Jones suffered a second heart attack.
Mr Jones, who lives with the couple’s children Siena, ten, Lily, eight and Jaxon, six, in Stanstead Abbotts, Hertfordshire, said last night: ‘I brought the legal action because I desperately want l essons to be learned from her death and do not want any other family to go through what we’ve had to endure.’
Mrs Jones also had a son Jake, 14, from a previous relationship.
Suzanne White, from Leigh Day, the legal firm representing the family, added: ‘This was a truly tragic case, one that has left a family devastated, a husband widowed, and four children without a mother.’
A hospital spokesman said it was pleased that a settlement had been reached with her family.