{"id":511,"date":"2020-01-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-17T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/2020-1-17-daukbbcwestsuffolkwitchhunt\/"},"modified":"2020-01-17T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-17T00:00:00","slug":"2020-1-17-daukbbcwestsuffolkwitchhunt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/2020-1-17-daukbbcwestsuffolkwitchhunt\/","title":{"rendered":"DAUK on BBC News: witch hunt to find whistleblower at West Suffolk hospital Dr Rinesh Parmar speaks to BBC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A former police officer whose wife died five weeks after bowel surgery said he was “knocked sideways completely” when he received an anonymous letter highlighting blunders in her treatment.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Susan Warby, 57, died at the West Suffolk Hospital on 30 August, 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During an inquest into her death, it was heard she had been given glucose instead of saline via an arterial line<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hospital reportedly asked doctors for fingerprints and handwriting samples to identify the whistleblower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Doctors’ Association described the attempt by the hospital to find the letter writer as a “witch hunt”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jon Warby said he received the letter two months after his wife’s death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said he was “quite surprised” by the lengths the hospital reportedly went to to find its author.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The inquest in Ipswich heard both Suffolk Police and the hospital launched investigations into the letter at the request of the coroner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hospital said an investigation into the nature of Mrs Warby’s care was already under way by the time the letter was sent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suffolk’s senior coroner Nigel Parsley said Mrs Warby’s family acknowledged her death was the “progression of a naturally occurring disease” but wanted to know if “errors may have had a contributory effect”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘Deep-seated toxic culture’<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It was heard Mrs Warby also suffered a punctured lung during an operation to replace the arterial line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her cause of death was recorded as multi-organ failure, with contributory causes including septicaemia, pneumonia and perforated diverticular disease, affecting the bowel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The inquest into mother-of-two’s death was adjourned so an independent medical witness can be brought in at the family’s request.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Doctors’ Association said it was approached by medics who said the hospital had demanded both fingerprints and samples of handwriting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It said clinicians claimed they were told if they refused that would be evidence of guilt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The witch hunt for a whistleblower following the tragic death of Mrs Warby highlights a deep-seated toxic culture at West Suffolk Hospital,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hospital said it would not comment until after the inquest had concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAUK speaks to BBC News after doctors approached the association alleging that West Suffolk hospital had demanded finger-prints and samples of handwriting to identify an anonymous whistleblower. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92],"tags":[195,38,46,33,42,178,144],"class_list":["post-511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-learn-not-blame","tag-bbc-news","tag-dauk","tag-dr-rinesh-parmar","tag-press","tag-the-doctors-association-uk","tag-tv","tag-west-suffolk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}