Blood too late to save boy

Press, 12 April 1983, Page 24

Blood too late to save boy

PA Auckland The death of a boy, aged 12, could have been averted if blood had been available “at the earliest opportunity” during surgery, an inquest has been told. The boy, Manu Bhana, of Glenfield, died on August 11 in Auckland Hospital’s criti-cal-care unit, a month after badly burning his legs in an accident at home. An anesthetist told the Coroner’s Court in Auckland, that the boy had lost about 2500 millilitres of blood during skin graft surgery at the Princess Mary Hospital 13 days before he died. Only two extra units of blood, totalling 1000 millilitres, had been available at the start of the operation and had been used “early in the procedure,” he said. The anaesthetist, Dr Jeremy Ormond Cooper, said that extra blood was not asked for until about an hour later, and did not arrive for another hour. Witnesses said that it took an hour for blood to be

tested and cross-matched. When asked by the Auckland Coroner, Mr A. D. Copeland, if it would have made any difference if the blood had arrived an hour earlier, another anesthetist, Dr Pamela Susan Melding, said, “it would have done.” Another witness, Dr William John Watt, the director of anesthetic services at the hospital, said in reply to the same question by the coroner, “I cannot say for certain that it would have altered the squence of events.” Counsel for the dead boy’s family, Mr Kevin Ryan, said that had it not been for the failure to give blood at the earliest opportunity, the child might have lived. Six doctors were called to give evidence.

Dr David John Dickson said that he was in charge of the skin grafting surgery on July 29. He said that the blood loss was greater than earlier thought, but everything had proceeded well from a technival point of view.

Under cross-examination by Mr Ryan, Dr Dickson said that the loss of 2500 millilitres of blood would be considerable for that patient if not adequately replaced. The Coroner said, “This case serves to illustrate that medicine is not a perfect science.”

He found that Manu Bhana died at Auckland Hospital on August 11, death being a result of an adult respiratory distress syndrome which developed after an operation to debride and skin graft burns to the right leg suffered in an accident.