A doctor has been sentenced to three years in prison for killing a mother-of-three after mishandling a bone marrow biopsy and piercing her heart during a routine checkup.
After Shahida Parveen, 48, passed away while receiving treatment at Royal Oldham Hospital in 2018, Dr. Isyaka Mamman, 85, pleaded guilty to gross negligence manslaughter.
Before the deadly episode, the doctor had already been suspended for lying about his age, and his coworkers believed he should be retired for botching similar surgeries that left a patient permanently crippled.
The 81-year-old Nigerian-born nurse performed the ‘very dangerous’ treatment using the incorrect needle and in the incorrect location, puncturing her heart sac.
In September 2018, the 48-year-old and her husband begged Mamman to stop the procedure, but he persevered, and she passed away later that day.
Mamman did not respond as he was sentenced to prison, but his family sobbed in the Manchester Crown Court public gallery.
Mrs. Justice Yip, who handed down the verdict, criticized the hospital trust that employed the defendant, stating that the case had a “troubling background” due to the doctor’s advanced age and two prior severe events in 2015.
It is difficult to see why these instances did not result in your retirement, she remarked.
Equally, it is challenging to understand why the trust did not take additional action and why you were permitted to keep working.
Sadly, there were systemic flaws.
“It is quite terrible to see a long career in medicine come to such a horrible end.”
The hospital visit by Ms. Parveen and her husband, Khizar Mahmood, was for probable myeloproliferative disease research, the court had previously been informed.
According to Andrew Thomas QC, the prosecutor, a bone marrow biopsy had been recommended, and Mamman, a specialist in haematology, had been given the usual treatment.
Mamman first failed to get a sample of bone marrow, which is typically extracted from the hip bone.
Instead, in defiance of her and her husband’s protests, he tried an unusual and “very hazardous” operation to obtain a sample from the patient’s sternum.
Mamman punctured her pericardium, the sac housing the heart, with the incorrect biopsy needle, missing the bone and leading to severe internal haemorrhage.
As soon as the needle was put, Ms. Parveen’s husband ran out of the room screaming, “He killed her.”
I yelled at him to stop three times, but he ignored me. He murdered her.
Mamman graduated from medical school in Nigeria in 1965 and has been practising medicine in the UK since 1991. He worked at the Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust from 2004 until the deadly incident.
However, the court was informed that there was no birth registration system in place where he was born in rural Nigeria, making it unclear what his “real age” actually is.
He stated that he was born on September 16, 1936, which meant that he was 21 years old when he started his medical education and 81 years old when the tragic hospital incident occurred.
But he reduced his age by years by using a 1941 birth date that he gave to the NHS, indicating that he started his medical training at the age of 16.
Mamman chose an even later birth date, October 1947, which he relied upon in an application for naturalization as a British citizen, implying he began his degree course at the age of 10. However, around 2001, Mamman approached what was then the mandatory retirement age of 65.
He was found guilty of serious professional misconduct in 2004 and given a 12-month suspension by the General Medical Council (GMC) for lying about his age.
When the GMC accepted his date of birth as 1943—which meant he was 14 or 15 when he started his medical degree—the Pennine Trust fired him, but then reinstated him in the workforce in 2006.
Because of his “poor performance,” he was fired from his prior job with the Medway Trust. In 2015, a patient filed an official complaint with the Oldham hospital after claiming that he had used “excessive force” during a bone marrow biopsy.
The patient was informed that although Mamman was in his 70s and his coworkers believed he should retire, they could not simply fire him due to his advanced age.
He will be given lighter work going forward, she was assured.
However, the same year, another clinical episode occurred that seriously injured a different patient. This incidence also involved a bone marrow biopsy and a misplaced needle.
Although the patient lived, they were permanently crippled.
It is terrible that someone who went to the hospital for a diagnostic test to plan their treatment and, eventually, help them feel better, ended up dying at the hands of a doctor, said Detective Inspector Rachel Smith of the Greater Manchester Police’s Major Incident Team outside of court.
“Our sympathies are with the victim’s family and friends,” the statement reads.
The Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust, which now manages the Oldham Royal Hospital, deputy chief executive Dr. Chris Brookes said: “We like to again extend our profound condolences to Mrs. Parveen’s family and friends and we are truly sorry for their loss.
“We would like to once again extend to Mrs. Parveen’s family our deepest apologies.” Our deepest condolences are with them.
The Trust has acknowledged responsibility in connection with a civil lawsuit the family has filed.