Families await inquest results following kidney deaths
Posted: December 4, 2014
Posted in: Medical Negligence Wrongful & Accidental Death
The families of two men are still waiting to hear why both men died after being given kidneys infected with a meningitis-causing parasitic worm during transplant procedures. Robert Stuart (67) and Darren Hughes (42) were given the infected organs in Cardiff in 2013 from a donor who died from meningitis. Prof Christopher Watson said that no one could have anticipated this tragic outcome.
Prof Christopher Watson was a member of a three-person panel arranged to review the case of the two deaths. He told the panel that personally he would not have used the organs, having known that the donor died from meningitis. One expert said that parasitic infection of this sort was very rare.
“tell the truth”
Both men died of meningitis two weeks after having undergone the transplants. The cause of the two deaths was only recognised during the post-mortem examinations.
In court on Tuesday (2 December) it was heard that both of the patients had been informed of the donor’s meningitis before undergoing the transplants. Relatives from both of the men, however, had previously claimed otherwise. A clinical research fellow from Cardiff’s University Hospital of Wales, Usman Khalid, said that both men were provided with an opportunity to refuse the operations. Mr Stuart’s widow challenged Mr Khalid’s evidence in court, asking him to “tell the truth”.
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