Former Nurse Suing NHS Grampian
A nurse who is suing the health board where she used to work today claimed that a patient died after the wrong side of their brain was operated on.
Anne Croft quit her job with NHS Grampian when her repeated concerns about cleanliness in operating theatres resulted in disagreements with surgeons.
She was told by four of the top doctors at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary that she was "incapable of doing her job" after she queried numerous issues during operations.
Mrs Croft was eventually signed off with work-related stress and now claims she was forced to resign after her concerns fell on deaf ears.
She claims that senior staff at the hospital believed she was slow in starting the days operations and delayed procedures with "excessive scrutiny" of surgical instruments.
The former nurse, who worked in theatres for almost 40 years, has now taken the health board to an employment tribunal which is being held in Aberdeen.
Giving evidence yesterday, Mrs Croft said she felt that steps were not being taken to avoid repeat mistakes.
She claimed while giving an example that one patient had not been marked properly before an operation, leading to a surgical error - with tragic consequences.
She said: "We had a patient a number of years ago who had the wrong side of his brain operated on and he died."
The nurse added that during her time at the health board people were still coming down to surgery without being marked properly.
Mrs Croft claims the behaviour of certain staff members at ARI resulted in her losing confidence in her employer to the point where she felt she had no alternative but to hand in her notice.
She is suing NHS Grampian for loss of earnings as she feels it has not been possible to regain employment as a nurse given the circumstances in which she left.
During the first day of the hearing on Monday, Mrs Croft, who lives in Carnoustie, said she was not happy to go ahead with brain surgery following the discovery of a "contaminated" surgical instrument tray.
Mrs Croft feared she had spotted dried blood, bone fragments and fluff around the tools, which were to be used to remove a brain tumour.
But after voicing her concerns the tray was examined and surgeons agreed they were happy to proceed.
They said there were no other tools available for the operation and the "contaminated" tools posed less of a risk than if the tumour was not operated on.
Yesterday, under cross examination, Mrs Croft said she found small 'specks' on trays of equipment "a number of times".
This meant that operations had to be delayed for a short time until the situation was resolved.
She added: "I didn't know if they were blood. Nobody did.
"We wanted to get this sorted before it went into a patient's head."
The tribunal heard that tests were carried out to ensure that the marks spotted by Mrs Croft were not blood.
Staff at the hospital's contamination department ruled that the marks were most likely due to the rigorous cleaning process.
The hearing continues.