Friday 6 February 2009

Doctor guilty of adrenaline shot death

Indian-born Priya Ramnath was given a suspended six-month jail sentence after being found guilty of killing Patricia Leighton in 1998 following a trial at Birmingham Crown Court...

Mrs Justice Rafferty added that the hospital registrar's defining error was that she had chosen not to listen to a sister working alongside her... Ramnath, whose sentence was suspended for two years, administered the adrenaline against the advice of three colleagues, the trial was told.

The doctor, who came back to the UK last February after being threatened with extradition, also failed to speak to a consultant anaesthetist at Stafford District General before injecting the drug into Mrs Leighton.
Source: The Metro.

Sorry, "six months suspended"? Did I read that correctly?

4 comments:

Linda said...

What a joke! Arrogance and a cavalier attitude has led a totally unnecessary death.

And then she wasn't even prepared to accept responsibility for her own actions!

6 years probably wouldn't have been enough.

AntiCitizenOne said...

Hmm, this is more of a legal post than an NHS post.

I thought of NDS as slightly more focused than just NHS + bad news.

Interesting to discuss what others think as it's not my blog.

JuliaM said...

Surely the fact she fled to Texas and had to be extradited back to face trial should have counted in her disfavour?

"I thought of NDS as slightly more focused than just NHS + bad news."

Hmm, good point - though it could just as easily be said that it's a case that looks to the culture of lack of responsibility in the NHS, the 'no blame' culture, if you will?

Mark Wadsworth said...

AC1, I'll go with JM's broader rule that "NHS + bad news" is enough to warrant inclusion here. It's all grist to the mill - for every story that maybe we shouldn't include I am sure we miss hundreds that are never reported.