An NHS surgeon has been struck off after he almost killed a patient by connecting the wrong parts of their organs together.
Dr Yasser Abdel Rahman was performing emergency bowel surgery on a male patient at The Royal Oldham Hospital in Greater Manchester when he connected the wrong part of the small intestine to the stomach, a tribunal heard.
It was a major surgical error and a ‘totally unconventional operation that was not compatible with life’, it was found.
The patient was left in ‘uncontrollable pain’ because his bowel and stomach were in a ‘closed loop’ – but Dr Abdel Rahman told the family that surgery had been a success.
Dr Abdel Rahman’s blunder meant the patient’s bowel contents had ‘nowhere to go apart from back into the stomach in a circular fashion’.
The patient did not have a bowel movement for three weeks.
The tribunal heard that he would have died if a different surgeon had not carried out a second operation to fix the error.
Dr Abdel Rahman never apologised or admitted he had made a mistake, and even claimed there was a ‘witch hunt’ against him.
Dr Abdel Rahman, who was a locum at the NHS hospital and had worked there for only ‘a few days’, performed an emergency operation on a patient on August 25, 2020.
The man, only referred to as Patient A by the tribunal, had a tumour in his small bowel and a ‘perforated necrotic loop of small bowel’.
Dr Abdel Rahman carried out a five-hour long surgery in which he cut the small bowel, leaving ‘two ends’.
In a statement, Dr Abdel Rahman said he and a vascular surgeon decided to carry out a procedure to connect the intestine to the stomach so that the ‘digestive/bowel continuity is maintained’.
After this, he said that a test was done to make sure there were no ‘obstructions that would prevent digestive/bowel continuity’.
Following the surgery, the patient reported ‘increasing pain’ until it was ‘uncontrollable’, he was vomiting and had no bowel movements at all which indicated that ‘the procedure was not a success’.
A nurse noted that Dr Abdel Rahman seemed ‘unconcerned’ by the fact that Patient A had no bowel movements for weeks, and was ‘dismissive’ of her concerns.
The tribunal found that the patient did not have a bowel movement for three weeks.
On September 11, 2020, Dr Abdel Rahman discussed the procedure with Patient A’s mother and father, saying that he would send him home ‘straight away’ once his pain was under control and that ‘all the signs are saying that’ his bowels would work soon.
Anthony Rate, a consultant general and colorectal surgeon at the hospital, took over the patient’s care on September 15 after his family and nursing staff raised concerns.
A second emergency operation then revealed Dr Abdel Rahman had made major surgical errors.
Specifically, he had connected the wrong part of the small intestine to the stomach, which meant Patient A’s bowel contents had ‘nowhere to go apart from back into the stomach in a circular fashion’.
