Bristol heart inquiry: Blind faith that ensured scandal remained a secret

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Bristol heart inquiry: top story

The investigation

The patients and their families

The findings

The operation

The consultant

The trust chief

Leading article: The Bristol report must mark the end of doctors' lack of accountability

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The Royal Bristol Infirmary Inquiry

Janardan Dhasmana is a broken man. Three years after he was sacked by Bristol Royal Infirmary, his reputation is in shreds and he is unlikely to work in a hospital again.

The Indian-born doctor, who worked as a consultant surgeon under James Wisheart from 1986 to 1998, pioneered the arterial switch operation at Bristol that cost so many babies their lives.

The procedure, which at the time was at the leading edge of clinical science, tested Mr Dhasmana's capabilities to the limit and his early failure rate was abnormally high.

At the public inquiry, Mr Dhasmana broke down when he apologised to the bereaved parents. "I wish I had not operated on those children," he said. Mr Dhasmana, 61, insisted he was "not a cavalier surgeon". The truth was quite the reverse. His deferential manner and trust in Mr Wisheart were partly why the failings at Bristol took so long to emerge.

After graduating in medicine from the University of Lucknow, India, in 1964, Mr Dhasmana came to Britain and joined the hospital in Bristol as a registrar in 1975. He applied for 13 consultancy posts before he was appointed a consultant at Bristol in 1986. By then, he had spent a year on sabbatical at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and at the University of Alabama. Mr Dhasmana undertook his first switch operation on an infant in 1992. But after five consecutive deaths of babies, he went to Birmingham to see a leading surgeon performing the same procedure, in an attempt to improve his skills.

Two years later, he reluctantly agreed to abandon neonatal switches, but insisted that he should continue to operate on older patients because his results justified it. His record for adult surgery, and less complex operations on children, compared well with national standards and the performance of Mr Wisheart. But Mr Dhasmana became the "fall guy" for the scandal.

In medical circles, there is anger at the way he has been "repeatedly vilified" and subject to harsher treatment than Mr Wisheart, who retired from the hospital on a full pension despite being struck off by the General Medical Council. Mr Dhasmana, who lives in Bristol with his family, was sacked without a pension even though the GMC did not remove him from the medical register and imposed a three-year ban on him operating on children instead.

This summer, the GMC extended the ban by another year and stopped him operating on adults, even though Mr Dhasmana was out of work and vowed that he would never practise on children again.