Doctor who gave woman insufficient anaesthetic during Caesarean keeps job

Published on Saturday 25 February 2012 12:35

A CONSULTANT who failed to give enough anaesthetic to a pregnant woman when she was having an elective Caesarean has been told he can continue working under supervision.

Jacques Vallet, 60, was working as a locum consultant anaesthetist at St John’s Hospital in Livingston when he was accused of giving the unnamed woman insufficient medication to numb the pain.

She told a disciplinary hearing yesterday that she could feel “scraping and scratching” on her lower stomach during the procedure to deliver her baby. Medical staff at the hospital temporarily postponed the operation after the woman panicked and cried out that she was still in pain. She was later fully sedated.

Her baby daughter was subsequently delivered successfully and no harm was caused to either mother or child, the General Medical Council hearing in Manchester was told.

Dr Vallet was charged with failing to administer an adequate local anaesthetic and of wrongly advising the operating surgeon that he was safe to proceed when the patient was experiencing sensation and discomfort.

The disciplinary panel concluded that Dr Vallet’s fitness to practise was impaired, but he could keep his job as long as he operated under a strict set of conditions. The woman, known as “Patient A”, was full-term when she underwent the elective C-section, having previously given birth to her first child in the same way.

She said she was still experiencing “sensation and discomfort” when the surgery commenced on 30 November, 2009.

During the hearing, the woman broke down and sobbed as she told how the experience had left her feeling “let down” by Dr Vallet, a Frenchman who began working as a doctor in the UK in 1983, but did not qualify as an anaesthetist until 2003.

He injected 2.3mg of a powerful painkiller, diamorphine, into the woman’s spinal cavity, but failed to administer a local anaesthetic to numb the region.

Giving evidence, the woman said: “I was lying on my back and was told to turn over. My arms were outstretched. Vallet actually said that he would have a spray and would go up and down my body to see if I could feel anything.

“He did that. I could still feel the cold on my body. He asked me if I could feel it and I said ‘yes’. I just felt the same every time it was done. I started getting a bit anxious.

“I thought that my feet should have had a warm or tingly sensation. But I didn’t feel that. After he said to me maybe wait another couple of minutes, I sat and I could still feel the spray.”

Asked if the surgery then began, the patient said: “It did. After the third attempt, I did say I was aware someone had made a sign or a statement to go ahead and I felt a sensation of something scraping and scratching me.”

Patient A’s husband told the hearing that Dr Vallet later came to him to say that “something had gone wrong” and apologised.

Panel chairman Mr David Flinter said: “The panel has concluded that it is appropriate, necessary and proportionate to impose conditions on his registration.”