A doctor who carried out a botched procedure that led to the death of a woman has been jailed for three years.
Dr Isyaka Mamman, who is believed to be 85, had already been suspended for lying about his age and colleagues thought he should be retired after botching similar procedures before the fatal incident.
He used an incorrect needle on Shahida Parveen, 48, and pierced her pericardium – which contains the heart – causing fatal internal bleeding.
During a bone marrow procedure on the mother of three, Mamman had attempted to extract a sample from Parveen’s sternum instead of taking it from the hip, where they are normally taken.
Parveen had attended Royal Oldham hospital on 3 September 2018, to give a bone marrow sample. It should have been a routine procedure and was watched by her husband, Khizar Mahmood, Manchester crown court was told.
She lost consciousness as soon as the needle was inserted, while her husband ran from the room shouting: “He killed her. I told him to stop three times and he did not listen. He killed her.” A cardiac arrest team arrived but Parveen was confirmed dead later that day.
Mamman had previously been suspended once by a medical watchdog for lying about his age and had been sacked but then re-employed by the Royal Oldham hospital, where he was involved in a number of incidents before the fatal appointment.
In 2015, he carried out two bone marrow procedures that caused distress or harm to patients. One patient made a formal complaint to Oldham hospital saying Mamman had used “excessive force” during a bone marrow biopsy.
Despite the patient being assured Mamman would be put on light duties in the future, he went on to carry out another bone marrow procedure in the same year in which he inserted the needle in the wrong place and left a patient permanently disabled.
Passing sentence, Mrs Justice Yip criticised both Mamman and the hospital trust that employed him, saying there is a “troubling background” to the case.
She said: “It is hard to understand why these incidents did not lead to your retirement. Equally it is difficult to see why the trust did not do more and why you were allowed to continue to work. Sadly there were failings in the system.”
Dr Chris Brookes, the deputy chief executive of the Northern Care Alliance NHS foundation trust, which now runs the Royal Oldham hospital, reiterated an apology. The trust has admitted liability in relation to a civil claim brought by the family.
The true age of Mamman, who qualified as a doctor in Nigeria in 1965 and started working in the UK in 1991, had been a matter of controversy, the court was told, as his birthplace in rural Nigeria had no formal system of birth registration.
