It’s not my problem
What doctor is said to have told his junior colleagues as woman aged 78 had a heart attack
A DOCTOR ignored pleas to help an elderly woman suffering a suspected heart attack while he was working out his notice, a tribunal has heard.
Dr Subhash Jasoria, 67, allegedly told staff, ‘It’s not my problem’, and watched as the woman lay on the floor fighting for her life.
He then refused ten further requests for help in resuscitating her in A&E, and told a junior doctor: ‘If you can’t manage airways you have no business being here.’
The anaesthetist eventually pushed a female junior doctor out of the way and took over with treatment.
Yesterday he appeared before the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service, where he faces charges of failing to assist the patient.
The tribunal panel was told the incident happened at the North Middlesex University Hospital in Enfield, North London, in August 2013 when a woman became ill outside WH Smith in the hospital foyer.
The morbidly obese 78-year-old, who was visiting a patient, collapsed in the foyer and went into cardiac arrest and doctors rushed to her aid.
Jasoria – who has 35 years’ experience and was working his final few days after handing in his notice – walked over to her with a passing off- duty cardiologist and they sent for the ‘cardiac arrest team’, which consisted of a junior anaesthetist and a medical registrar, among others.
But when the team arrived, Jasoria asked if he could leave, it is alleged.
As one medic struggled to unblock the woman’s airways and asked where the anaesthetist was, Jasoria pointed at the junior doctor saying ‘she is there’, the tribunal heard. In a statement read to the Manchester hearing, the female junior colleague of Jasoria, known as Dr C, said: ‘When I got there, resuscitation was going on. I saw Dr Jasoria standing … doing nothing, like a bystander, and I heard someone shouting, “Where is the anaesthetist?”.
‘Dr Jasoria shouted towards me and said, “She’s here”. I saw the A&E practitioner trying to manage the airways the best he could. The patient was morbidly obese and had excess fat on the neck which made it difficult.
‘I took over from him and asked Dr Jasoria to help us as the senior anaesthetist, and he refused to help me and said, “It’s not my problem”. I said, “You are the registrar, you need to help”, but he refused again.’ The woman was then moved to A&E, where the doctor continued to treat her as Jasoria allegedly stood at the side of the cubicle and watched. Dr C said Jasoria appeared again and she asked him for help ten times, but he again refused and there was no help. ‘
She added: ‘Suddenly he shouted at me in front of the whole team, “If you can’t manage airways you have no business being here”.
She said he then pushed her hand away and took over.
‘The whole team fell silent for a second and were surprised how he responded to me,’ she said. Others
‘He was like a
bystander’
found it very upsetting how he treated me and the rest of the team.’
The hearing, which will decide whether his fitness to practise has been impaired, was told the patient later recovered.
The panel was told that in March 2013, the anaesthetist had refused to intervene when bleeped by a consultant who needed help with a patient in cardiac arrest in A&E.
Jasoria denies that he refused to treat the patient.
The hearing continues.