Surgeon struck off for series of failings

A SURGEON has been struck off after mistakenly removing a woman’s fallopian tube and ovary instead of her appendix during a botched operation at a Yorkshire hospital.

Dr Lawal Baba Haruna was found to have made a series of medical errors in theatre while working for Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust by a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) panel this week.

The panel ruled that the doctor’s failures, between September 2013 and August 2015, amounted to serious misconduct meaning his fitness to practise is impaired.

He has now been erased from the medical register.

Dr Haruna, who was not represented during the tribunal but was present, admitted failing to identify the woman’s appendix while carrying out an open appendicectomy in March, 2015 – and instead incorrectly removed her fallopian tube and ovary.

He also admitted mistakenly removing a patient’s fat pad instead of an appendix during a laparoscopic appendicectomy in September, 2013, and removing a skin tag instead of small cyst from a patient under anaesthetic in August 2015.

In its decision, the MPTS panel said Dr Haruna’s standard of care “fell seriously below that expected of a reasonably competent staff grade surgeon”.

The panel’s judgment said: “The tribunal agreed that all three incidents were ‘never events’, in that they were surgical incidents that should never have occurred.

“It determined that all three fell seriously below the standard expected, and that fellow practitioners would find your conduct deplorable.

“It determined that your actions could seriously undermine public confidence in the medical profession, and accordingly, it determined that your actions amounted to serious professional misconduct.”

The judgment said that erasure was “the necessary and proportionate response” to the case in order to suitably protect the public.

Dr Haruna told the tribunal that following the errors, he had since read journal articles and undertaken a BMJ doctors’ learning module in order to prove what he had learned.

He also said he had shown empathy towards his patients, and had apologised to two of them and reached out to the third.

Following the tribunal, Dr Haruna has been struck off from the medical register. An immediate order of suspension is also in place.

He can appeal within 28 days.