Doctor apologises to family for treatment of wife with cancer

THE grieving husband of a woman who died of lung cancer after GPs repeatedly failed to diagnose her disease has finally received an apology from the doctor who failed to admit his wife to hospital two days before her death.

Jean Cross, a 60-year-old care worker, died in April last year after doctors failed to identify her condition during 39 visits to a health centre.

She had mistakenly been told she was suffering from a frozen shoulder. A doctor from the out-of-hours GMEDS service also failed to admit Mrs Cross to hospital after being called to her home 48 hours before she died, when she was suffering excruciating pain in her abdomen.

Mrs Cross, of Shearer Avenue, Buckie, died in a toilet at Dr Gray’s Hospital in Elgin the day before the results of a scan confirmed she had lung cancer. The scan revealed a tumour so large it was crushing the nerves in her arm.

In October last year, her devastated husband Colin received an apology from NHS Grampian and Dr Alison Douglas, a partner at the Ardach Health Centre, for their handling of Mrs Cross’s care.

And the family has now received a face-to-face apology from Dr Suchitra Mehta, the GMEDS doctor who failed to admit Mrs Cross to hospital after being called to her home two days before she died.

Dr Mehta had ruled out any emergency and advised her to contact NHS 24 or visit her health centre if the pain got worse.

At a meeting with Mr Cross and other members of the family, Dr Mehta said: “I am very, very sorry to hear about your loss. Retrospectively, I would have done differently. I would have admitted her. The moment you told me what had been going on and the weight loss, instantly I knew there was something wrong with her, something very serious.”

She added: “I accept fully and thoroughly that I should have done more. I should have admitted her. I knew it was cancer. I thought you and her didn’t realise how serious this was.

“Retrospectively I would have admitted her. I wanted to wait for her CT scan results, but the results had not come through yet. I knew she needed surgery and chemotherapy. Elgin hospital is not the place that delivers that.”

Mr Cross said he hoped his campaign would prevent a similar tragedy happening to another family.

He said: “It has been a long and hard, heartbreaking journey for myself and my family. It has taken nearly a year since Jean’s death to get all the people who were involved in her tragic passing to admit to their mistakes and, in some instances, plain failure in their duties.”

He added: “There is not much more I can do now. It was never about getting money – it was about trying to make sure that other families will not have to go through what we’ve endured with my wife’s death. The whole of the health service in Grampian let her down and I just wanted to wake them up to try and help anybody else.”

NHS Grampian brought in new measures at Dr Gray’s Hospital following an investigation into Mrs Cross’s death.