Inquest: Rossendale woman died 13 days after surgery

An inquest at Burnley Magistrates Court has found that a 63-year-old woman died despite having surgery just 13 days prior.
Burnley Magistrates Court.Burnley Magistrates Court.
Burnley Magistrates Court.

Janet Hamer, of Lowe View in Rossendale, died on November 22nd, 2017 having been discharged from hospital on November 9th following a successful vascular operation on her femoral artery on the third of the month.

Mrs Hamer underwent surgery for an occlusion of the femoral artery in her thigh and gangrene of her left big toe, with her surgeon, Mrs Jennifer Buxton, explaining: "There was a barely palpable phemeral pulse."

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Dr Deepa Jacob, a pathologist at Royal Blackburn Hospital who attended the inquest, said: "As she had a block in the femoral artery, they cut the artery below the blockage and used a vein from her leg to make a bypass."

Following the operation, Mrs Hamer was discharged six days later and was visited by district nurses daily at her home. On November 22nd, they dressed her wound and left, only for her husband to call an ambulance when the bleeding started again soon after, leading to Mrs Hamer's death.

Dr Jacob offered the cause of death to be exsanguination.

Mr Richard Taylor, coroner, said: "[The operation] was a risk taken to try and make her better. The operation was a success and it was working, but the problem was she had to get over the operation. For somebody as poorly as she was, she had no ability to fight off infection.

"Janet Hamer died on the 22nd of November from a complication of essential surgery," he said.