Cancer victim’s widower demands health care facts

Investigation into surgery after avoidable deaths

A grieving husband has given a harrowing account of how his wife died in a cancer unit which has now had its services suspended.

The 70-year-old, from Canterbury, says he watched helplessly as his 64-year-old wife’s condition deteriorated despite earlier signs of improvement.

She died at Maidstone Hospital around a month after undergoing gastrointestinal keyhole surgery.

The hospital trust has admitted five avoidable deaths in its GI keyhole surgery provision and has suspended the unit’s services.

The man, who has asked to remain anonymous, spoke of the night he last saw his wife alive. He said: “Some of the tubes had been taken out and I thought to myself ‘this is my wife again’.

“That night she was going to settle down to do The Times crossword, which she used to love doing. I don’t think any- body believed she wasn’t going to make it.”

But the following morning, on December 20, 2012, he received a phone call telling him his wife had died.

“It was absolutely devastating,” he said. “Now, it is a question of if things had been done, or things that should have been weren’t – whether it is good news or bad news – we can then move on. I would just really like to find out the facts of the situation.”

His wife had been diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in June 2012, and had received chemotherapy at Kent and Canterbury Hospital.

He told how she had felt so well she had been running up and down the stairs at home during sessions.

In November 2012 she received GI keyhole surgery at Maidstone Hospital.

After a spell in intensive care, she complained of stomach pains and was admitted for a second operation at the hospital, which revealed a hole in her colon.

The husband said: “I have no idea why the hole was there. That is one of the unknowns.”

The woman’s husband is one of a number of relatives of victims dealing with criminal negligence solicitors Thomson, Snell and Passmore.

Since the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust admitted five avoidable deaths during 2012-13, the Royal College of Surgeons has investigated.

Trust managers are refusing to release the RCS report, but have said they will release the recommendations once all affected families have been spoken to.

Solicitor Sharon Lam said: “Most just want to go through and find out the truth.

“They just feel that they have been let down and that the truth’s still being kept from them.”