EXCLUSIVE

A YOUNG doctor has told an inquest how her immediate superior would not personally examine a dying county court judge in spite of her continued pleas for help.

Instead, a coroner was told, the acting registrar Dr Claude Gose - an agency temp on loan to Macclesfield Hospital for three months - had gone to bed.

Raymond Tynas, 74, the country's longest serving district judge and one of Macclesfield's most senior legal figures, died of a massive heart attack after suffering falling blood pressure following a bowel operation.

Dr Sarah MacDougal, who had only been at Macclesfield Hospital for four months, told how Dr Gose - who has returned to his native South Africa - ignored her protestations.

Dr Gose's written statement was dismissed out of hand by deputy coroner Dr Janet Napier who said: "Well, I don't think much of that evidence."

In recording a verdict of misadventure she said she would write to Macclesfield Hospital voicing her concerns over his lack of support to the young doctor on that night, June 7, 2005.

Married Judge Tynas, a father-of-three, of The Drive, Bollington, who sat at the old Park Green County Court and was famous for taking his beloved dogs to chambers, died in intensive care on June 7 last year. He was also District Judge in Warrington.

Dr MacDougal was on duty as house officer in a recovery ward when she was told that Judge Tynas' blood pressure had dropped. At least three times she was brushed off by Dr Gose when she expressed her concerns. He told her he did not need to see the patient and left the ward.

Dr MacDougal, a Manchester University graduate who now works at a Salford Hospital, said the next time she tried to get hold of her superior she was told by a nurse: "Mr Gose has left and gone to bed." At 4pm the judge had died.

The coroner told the young doctor: "It doesn't appear you were getting a lot of support from your registrar. It appears to me you weren't getting any support."

Macclesfield Hospital Consultant Surgeon Anthony Quayle, who operated on Judge Tynas, said: "I think Dr MacDougal did what she could in the circumstances. I think the support which was given to her was inadequate."

An outraged spokesman for the agency, Thames Medic, MD Kate Bleasdale said: "I think it is extraordinary that I am being given this information by a journalist and not the trust. We will be taking immediate action."

A hospital spokeswoman, who confirmed an adjourned inquiry would continue following the outcome of the inquest, said: "Neither the General Medical Council nor the locum agency were initially involved as this was an internal review. We offer our sincere condolences to the family."

  • IN 2001 shamed colorectal surgeon Gavin Denton was suspended on full pay for three years at a cost of £500,000 to ratepayers pending an inquiry into complaints by colleagues relating to "the clinical management of patients who had undergone surgery". He later quit.

A trust spokesman said: "There are no parallels between the two cases."