A&E doctor who failed to diagnose 75-year-old woman’s fatal sepsis and lied to ‘cover up’ the error is struck off

An ER doctor who failed to diagnose a 75-year-old woman's sepsis – and later tried to 'cover up' his mistake after she died – has been suspended.

Dr. Allen Demanya wrongly diagnosed the patient with an infection in her digestive system just hours before she died of sepsis, a tribunal heard.

When the woman died, Dr. Demanya falsified hospital records to cover up his mistake.

The doctor, who works at an NHS hospital, even lied under oath about it to a coroner during the woman's inquest, it was heard.

Now the doctor has been kicked out of the profession after a panel of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) ruled he had 'seriously undermined' public confidence.

The MPTS hearing was told that Dr Demanya had qualified from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana, in 1992 and moved to Britain in 2003.

At the time of the events, Dr Demanya was working as a locum doctor in the emergency department at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital in Pontyclun, Wales.

The 75-year-old was taken to hospital by ambulance at 1:51 am on February 26, 2019.

When she arrived, the nurse who triaged her wrote “possible sepsis” on her notes. It was heard that Dr. Demanya examined the patient at 3 am and prescribed medicine.

An hour later, the woman named 'Patient A' fell from her hospital bed and was found on the floor of her cubicle by a nurse who helped her back into her trolley.

About three hours later, at 7 a.m., another doctor arrived, alerted by their pager and a phone call, and they “expressed concern” about her condition.

Less than 24 hours after admission, at 12:40 a.m. on February 27, Patient A died of sepsis in the hospital emergency department.

At an inquest held a year after the woman's death, Dr Demanya 'explicitly maintained' under oath that he had prescribed antibiotics to Patient A after his initial assessment of her.

However, a nurse – referred to as Nurse B – who administered the woman's prescription for paracetamol gave evidence to the coroner, insisting 'no prescription for antibiotics had been written'.

Following this evidence, Dr Demanya said that this 'refreshed' his memory and that he had instead prescribed the antibiotics at 3.42am, but this was again disputed by another nurse who visited Patient A at 5am saying 'there were no IV antibiotics. on the recipe card'.

The tribunal found that it was 'more likely that Dr Demanya had not prescribed the antibiotics by 5.50am' – almost three hours after his initial assessment of Patient A.

In a statement, Dr. Demanya also insisted that he included catheterization at 3 a.m. in her treatment plan, and “pursued the nurses several times when (he) realized that Patient A had not been catheterized.”

Again this issue was disputed by another nurse who was 'adamant' that the doctor had never asked her to catheterise Patient A.

In oral evidence at the tribunal, Dr Demanya said that he had examined Patient A from head to toe after she fell out of bed, and the tribunal noted that, if this were the case, he would probably have noticed that there was a catheter applied. not assembled.

They said that if catheterization was an “integral part” of his treatment plan, he would have taken “decisive action at this time” to have one placed.

A catheter was placed at 6:30 am after another doctor, Doctor D, asked if Patient A had urinated.

Dr. Demanya has been thrown out of his profession after a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) panel ruled he had 'severely undermined' public confidence

It was learned that the doctor diagnosed her with gastroenteritis, a short-term illness caused by infection and inflammation of the digestive system.

Tribunal chairman Gerry Wareham said Dr Demanya had 'retroactively' added both antibiotics and a catheter to his treatment plan to give the 'false impression' that both were included.

The tribunal heard he did this 'to protect himself from the possible consequences of making a clinical error' and pursued the 'dishonest cover-up' at the coroner a year later.

Mr Wareham said: “The Tribunal has proven that Dr. Demanya knowingly made the retrospective notes in the medical record to give the false impression that they had been part of the original treatment plan, and knowingly provided false statements to the coroner.

“The Tribunal also found that he was aware of the clear importance of the integrity of the documents he prepared and the accountability he gave to the coroner.

“The Tribunal found that any ordinary decent person would regard his actions in such circumstances as dishonest.”

Mr. Wareham deleted Dr. Demanya from the register saying, among other things, that he had failed to make a specific diagnosis of a serious infection, to prescribe antibiotics at all or within an adequate time period to Patient A and to include a catheterization in his treatment plan.

He said the doctor failed to escalate the “severity” of Patient A's condition to other medical professionals and retroactively added both catheterization and antibiotics to her treatment regimen.

Mr Wareham added: “The Tribunal found that Dr. Demanya had seriously undermined public confidence in the profession and brought the profession into disrepute.

“It was also felt that a risk to public safety remained.

“The Tribunal therefore determined for these reasons that it was necessary to exclude the name of Dr. Demanya from the register to protect the welfare of the public, to promote and maintain public confidence in the profession and to maintain appropriate professional standards.”