Inquest into epidural blunder finds hospital at fault

Jan 7 2008

An inquest in Britain into the death of a nurse within two hours of giving birth at the hospital where she worked as a theatre nurse, has heard that an epidural anaesthetic was mistakenly fed into her arm instead of her back.

Mayra Cabrera, a 30 year old, was a theatre nurse and she suffered a fatal heart attack following an injection of Bupivacaine during the birth of a healthy 8lb baby, Zachary, at the Great Western hospital in Swindon, Wiltshire, in 2004.

Cabrera's husband Arnel was forced to return to the Philippines because his work visa depended on his wife being in work; both husband and wife worked at the hospital where she died.

In a statement read by the coroner, Mr Cabrera told how Zachary was placed on his mother's chest moments before Mrs Cabrera had a seizure.

Despite the efforts of doctors they were unable to save her and her husband was told that his wife had died because of an embolism which is very rare.

Mr Cabrera returned to the Philippines after his wife's death in May 2004 and a year later he was informed there had been a blunder.

Mr Cabrera says he is very angry that he had been lied to for so long about how his wife had died and says they both went to Britain to start a new life.

He says the person who gave his wife the drug robbed him of his family.

Wiltshire coroner, David Masters told the jury in Trowbridge that there had been two other deaths at hospitals in the UK in the last decade caused by the epidural drug Bupivacaine being administered intravenously and expressed his concern that Cabrera's widower had been forced to leave the country.

Swindon and Marlborough NHS Trust has admitted full liability.