“MY mission now is to get him struck off before anyone else dies – and until that happens I will not feel good.”
That was the message from Redditch resident Mandy Bridgman following a coroners court hearing in Coventry into the death of her husband Stephen who died following a botched operation to remove a benign tumour, known as a meningioma, from his brain.
The court heard that the tumour should have been removed by carefully dissecting it.
Instead consultant neurosurgeon Mr Hussien El–Maghraby tore the tumour out in one piece, damaging blood vessels which lead to uncontrollable bleeding which couldn’t be stopped, despite two further procedures.
The operation, at the Walsgrave Hospital in Coventry, had been carried out on September 13, 2016 and Mr Bridgman, of Purshall Close, Redditch, died 45 days later on October 28, 2016. He was 62.
University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, which has responsibility for the acts of Mr El-Maghraby in terms of his employment in the NHS, admitted the operation was negligently performed and if the procedure had been performed correctly Mr Bridgman would not have died.
Mr El-Maghraby had disputed the admission of negligence and had attempted to defend his actions.
However, independent expert evidence stated that the only reason to remove a meningioma in the manner in which Mr El-Maghraby did, was “haste over following standard micro surgical procedures”.
It found the way Mr El-Maghraby performed the operation carried a “foreseeable, almost entirely avoidable and unacceptable risk of causing vascular injury leading to the inevitable haemorrhage and death”.
Mrs Bridgman, a former nurse, said despite the verdict she still felt numb over the loss of her husband.
“The General Medical Council (GMC) knew about this man in 2014 and if they had done something then Steve and other patients would still be alive today,” she said.
“It is also concerning that the Trust appears not to have carried out a detailed review of Mr El-Maghraby’s patient outcomes/rate of complications as recommended in a report prepared by the Royal College of Surgeons in January 2018.
“I do not want any other family to suffer like we have.
“My mission now is to get him struck off so he cannot damage anyone else.”
The family’s solicitor, Kashmir Uppal, medical negligence partner at Shoosmiths said: “We are now representing ten clients who have suffered life changing injuries as a result of surgery performed by Mr El-Maghraby, and that is ten too many for no action to be taken to protect patients.”
