85-year-old doctor pleads guilty to woman’s death in botched surgery

An 85-year-old Nigeria-origin doctor botched a routine procedure, resulting in the death of a woman, a court heard.

Isyaka Mamman who has dubious professional track records admitted gross negligence manslaughter during the hearing into the death of Shahida Parveen.

The doctor who had been at the centre of several critical incidents was previously sacked by a medical watchdog for lying about his age before he was reappointed by the Royal Oldham hospital.

In September 2018, Parveen, 48, had gone to hospital with suspected myeloproliferative disorder and a bone marrow biopsy had been advised, Manchester Crown Court heard.

While the usual procedure involves taking bone marrow samples from the hip bone, Mamman failed to obtain a sample at the first attempt.

Instead, he attempted a rare and "highly dangerous" procedure of getting a sample from Parveen's sternum, despite objections from the patient and her husband, Andrew Thomas QC said.

Mamman, who used the wrong biopsy needle, missed the bone and pierced the patient’s pericardium, the sac containing the heart.

Parveen lost consciousness as soon as the needle was inserted and suffered massive internal bleeding. The mother of three died later in the day.

Mamman obtained his medical degree in Nigeria in 1965 and worked in the UK since 1991. From 2004 until the time of the fatal incident, he was employed by the Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, the BBC reported.

However, there are no conclusive records about his age as the Nigerian rural area where he was born had no system of birth registration. He first told the NHS that he was born in 1941 and later he claimed he was born in 1947.

In 2004, the General Medical Council found him guilty of serious professional misconduct and he was suspended for a year for lying about his age. The trust sacked him but employed him again in 2006 after he had been restored to the register by the GMC which accepted his year of birth as 1943, the BBC report said.