Medical equipment found in body of young woman following surgery

Black plastic clips and medical gauze were removed from the body of a young woman after she collapsed and died while on holiday in Corfu, an inquest was told yesterday.

Black plastic clips and medical gauze were removed from the body of a young woman after she collapsed and died while on holiday in Corfu, an inquest was told yesterday.

Karen Murray, a 19-year-old, trainee hotel manager underwent two operations at the Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Merseyside to remove part of her bowel, when she was 12-years old.

She died seven years later, in May 1998, while on holiday with her boyfriend.

Miss Murray's mother Mary told the jury at Southport Coroner's Court that an X-ray carried out on her daughter two years earlier had revealed "silver strips" inside her abdomen, but there was no suggestion from doctors that these needed to be removed.

Following the X-ray, the teenager, of Southport, Merseyside, missed three appointments with a specialist which she did not tell her mother about. The jury heard how Miss Murray who was born with a rare bowel condition, called Hirschspring disease had developed a fear of doctors after having a colostomy bag fitted by Dr Roger Cudmore to ease her condition when she was 12 years old.

In the summer of 1996, the inquest was told how Miss Murray came home from school complaining of feeling unwell and began vomiting that evening. She was admitted to Southport and Formby District General Hospital where she was given a number of enemas and an X-ray.

Her mother told the jury that after the X-ray a doctor came to speak to them both. "At the time he did not give any indication that there was any cause for concern," she said.

"He came into the room, laughing and saying 'what has she been eating, because there are four to five silver strips showing on the X-ray?"

Allan Mowat, representing the three hospitals involved in the inquest, told Mrs Murray that her daughter had received appointment cards to attend the Royal Liverpool University Hospital in December 1996, March 1997 and July 1997, but she failed to do so.