A heartbroken father-of-two has described the death of his wife following a supposedly simple procedure in hospital.

Martin O'Connor said that following his wife Saundra's laparoscopy on March 25, 2005, he was phoned to come and collect his wife.

She was drowsy and began to retch when he arrived at the Galway Clinic. Shortly afterwards, Dr Andrea Hermann arrived and said she would keep her in overnight.

When he returned the next morning, his wife was "doubled" over with pain. Saundra then vomited up brown fluid.

At 5.30pm on March 27, his wife was still in pain and could not even talk to her daughters.

"That was the last time she spoke," Mr O'Connor said.

Mr O'Connor was giving evidence to the Medical Council's Fitness to Practise committee.

Dr Hermann, the consultant gynaecologist who performed the laparoscopy at the Galway Clinic , has admitted to the committee that her care of the late Mrs O'Connor (39) amounted to professional misconduct.

The resumed hearing of the committee's inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death of Mrs O'Connor, of Claregalway, Co Galway, heard yesterday that Dr Hermann had initially wrongly diagnosed the mum as suffering from polycystic ovarian syndrome. She simply had a cyst on one of her ovaries.

Eoin McCullough, for the Medical Council, said that the complaints against Dr Hermann were that she had failed to conduct appropriate investigations before carrying out a laparoscopy; failed to provide conservative management of the cyst; failed to provide for early administration of antibiotics, failed to appreciate the gravity of the patient's condition; and failed to provide appropriate standards of clinical judgment.

The inquiry was told that the patient's condition deteriorated further after the procedure and Dr Hermann arranged for surgery. She was transferred to theatre and underwent another laparoscopy and a laparotomy. Large amounts of brown fluid were discovered in her abdominal cavity.

She was taken to the ICU and suffered multi-organ failure and a cardiac arrest. Her family later signed a Do Not Resuscitate form and she remained in a vegetative state until she died on February 19 last year.

In the second case against Dr Hermann, a teacher told of undergoing an abdominal hysterectomy without the presence of blood products to deal with her haemophilia condition. The mum-of-two (39) said she suffered from Factor 11 deficiency, a rare bleeding disease.

Following the hysterectomy in March last year, the woman became extremely ill and had to be admitted to University Hospital, Galway. A post-operative haematoma was found and she eventually recovered after 19 days. Mr McCullough said in their assessment of her performance with this patient, the peer review group wondered why such a high-risk surgery was performed.

The hearing was expected to continue today.

hnews@herald.ie

- Brian McDonald