A Lincolnshire doctor has been struck off the Medical Register after giving a patient the wrong knee replacement during surgery.
Dr Emyr Abdul Hafiz Chowdhury has worked for the North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust since 2008, which include Stamford and Rutland Hospital.
At the time of the events in April 2016, Mr Chowdhury was practising as a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon, specialising in hip and knee arthroplasty at Peterborough City Hospital. However, he no longer works for the trust.
It was alleged that he failed to adequately check that the correct-sided replacement prosthesis was being used prior to the procedure commencing. A prosthesis for a right knee was implanted into the patient’s left leg.
It was also alleged the on January 30, 2017, the doctor knowingly provided untrue information to the patient when he said it was “impossible to check” at the time of the procedure that the correct-sided prosthesis had been implanted.
His actions regarding this information were accused of being dishonest.
The case was referred to the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS), with hearings in 2019, 2020 and again in February 2021 before a decision was reached. The GMC investigates doctors and brings a case against them to the MPTS, who make independent decisions about a doctor’s fitness to practice.
During the hearings held between February 22 to 26 this year the tribunal had to decide whether the 55-year-old’s fitness to practice was impaired by reason of misconduct. It was found to be impaired.
Although fitting the wrong knee was treatment below the reasonable standard, it was accepted by the tribunal that incorrect labelling may have contributed to the error.
However, his dishonesty in attempting to cover up the mistake led to him being struck off.
The tribunal also decided to erase Dr Chowdhury from the Medical Register and to impose an immediate order of suspension to cover the 28 day appeal period.
Dr Kanchan Rege, Chief Medical Officer at North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Peterborough City, Hinchingbrooke and Stamford and Rutland Hospitals, said: “After conducting a serious incident investigation internally, we referred this case to the GMC.”
The patient involved in this case was fully informed about the serious incident investigation findings and no other patients have been affected.
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A 38-year-old man from a North Lincolnshire village charged with murder will face an eight-day trial later this year.
Emergency services were called at 4.23am on Saturday, July 2 to reports that a man was seriously injured on South Parade in central Doncaster.
The 28-year-old victim was taken to hospital but was sadly pronounced dead a short time later.
A post-mortem examination found that he died of injuries to his head, chest and abdomen.
Formal identification of the victim is yet to take place, South Yorkshire Police said earlier this week.
Steven Ling, 38, of Park Drain, Westwoodside in North Lincolnshire, has been charged with murder and was remanded in custody to appear at Doncaster Magistrates Court on Monday, July 4.
Ling later appeared at Sheffield Crown Court on Tuesday, July 5 for a plea and trial preparation hearing.
No pleas were entered during the hearing, but an eight-day trial was set for November 28, 2022. Ling has now been remanded into custody until the next hearing.
The Lincolnite went on a ride-along with a Lincolnshire Police officer from the force’s Roads Policing Unit (RPU), which aims to disrupt criminals’ use of the roads and reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents.
The team will support the county response including local policing, neighbourhood policing and criminal investigation too.
Operations first began in Grantham in January this year and started in Louth earlier this week with a sergeant and nine PCs based in both locations.
The Lincolnite went out on a ride-along with PC Rich Precious from Lincolnshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
PC Rich Precious has been a police officer for 22 years after joining the force in 2000 and he recently rejoined the Roads Policing Unit, working out of Louth.
PC Precious, who also previously worked as a family liaison officer for road deaths for 16 years, took The Lincolnite out in his police car to the A1 up to Colsteworth and then back to Grantham. He described that particular area as “one of the main arterial routes that goes through Lincolnshire”.
PC Rich Precious driving down the A1 up to Colsterworth. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Speaking about the new Roads Policing Unit, he said: “It’s intelligence led policing, it’s targeted policing in areas that have been underrepresented in terms of police presence, on the roads certainly, over a number of years.
“We’re hoping that the development of this unit will help address that balance, and look towards using the ANPR system to prevent criminals’ use of the road, and to identify key areas or routes where there’s a high percentage of people killed or seriously injured on the road, what we commonly refer to as KSI.
PC Precious is helping to keep the roads safer in Lincolnshire. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
When asked if he thinks the new team will help reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents in the county, he added: “That’s what the the unit designed for. Sadly, in Lincolnshire our road network does seem to incur a number of those KSI accidents year on year, and we need to reduce that.
“I’ve worked additionally in my roles as a family liaison officer on road death for 16 years, so I’ve seen first hand the impact that road death has on families and victims families.
“I know it’s important that we try and reduce those because, it’s very sad to see how a fatal road traffic collision can affect a family and the victims of that family.”
Marc Gee, Inspector for Lincolnshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Marc Gee, Inspector for the Roads Policing Unit, told The Lincolnite: “Every day there will be officers on duty from both teams and they’ll cover the whole county or the county’s roads.
“Eventually, we’ll have nine police cars and we’ve got six motorbikes. We’ll be utilising them with as many officers as we can every day basically to make our roads safer and enforce against the criminals who feel like it’s okay to come into the county and use our road for criminal purposes.”
Lincolnshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner Marc Jones at the launch of the force’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
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