'Gross negligence' of surgeons led to kidney blunder

A pensioner died five weeks after two surgeons mistakenly removed his healthy kidney during an operation after a simple clerical error, a court was told yesterday.

John Roberts, a consultant urologist, and the surgeon Mahesh Goel failed to realise for two hours that the 69-year-old patient's single healthy kidney had been taken out instead of the diseased one.

By the time the mistake had been discovered, the left kidney had been put in a jar of acid-based sterilising liquid, ruling out the possibility of putting it back.

Clerical errors led to the bungled operation, which left the patient, John Reeves, with only his right kidney, which was chronically diseased and had not worked for many years, Cardiff Crown Court was told.

Mr Reeves, a retired pipe lagger, from Burry Port, near Llanelli, who had been described as "active but not healthy", had two further operations, including one within hours of the first, but his diseased kidney never worked again and he died on 1 March 2000.

Mr Roberts, who oversaw the operation, and Mr Goel, who removed the kidney at Prince Philip Hospital in Llanelli in January 2000 went on trial yesterday for manslaughter.

Leighton Davies QC, for the prosecution, said the two "professional and respectable men are guilty of the manslaughter because of thoughtlessness and want of due care".

He said the mix-up happened after Mr Goel mistakenly wrote in a diary that the left kidney was to be removed and the error was repeated in a list for the operation.

The case notes referred to the other kidney but the inconsistency was not picked up. A student doctor observing the operation said the right kidney should be removed but Mr Goel overruled her.

Mr Davies said to the jury: "The negligence on the part of each of the defendants was so bad, fell so far below the standard of care to be expected of a reasonably competent surgeon, that it deserves to be condemned by you as amounting to gross negligence."

Mr Reeves died at a hospital in Swansea where he had been moved for dialysis. Mr Davies said Mr Roberts described the mistake "as the worst thing he had done in his life.

"After the operation, Mr Reeves's body was left with no kidney function whatsoever. It was a situation of catastrophe, as not only the defendants but everyone else involved in the operation must have realised."

The mistake was explained to Mr Reeves after the bungled operation and he agreed to more surgery to try to get the diseased kidney working again. "That operation stood little chance of success. The right kidney was a useless organ," Mr Davies said.

Mr Reeves later developed heart and breathing problems and started to have fits. His condition continued to deteriorate, he was put on a ventilator and then developed blood poisoning, believed to have been caused by the remaining kidney.

His cousin gave permission for a third operation to remove the other kidney, but after that surgery no infection was found. Before he died, he showed signs of pneumonia.

Mr Roberts, 60, of Swansea, and Mr Goel, 40, of Burnley, Lancashire, deny manslaughter. The case continues.