Nurses accused of manslaughter plead not guilty

Apr 9 2008

Two Gold Coast nurses accused of manslaughter have entered a plea of not guilty.

The nurses 48 year-old Jennifer Annique Valentine of Reedy Creek and 51-year-old Michael George Gibbons of Hope Island, allegedly failed to alert doctors to an emergency situation and as a result a patient died.

Christopher Hammett a 41-year-old teacher died the morning after elective disc surgery on his back at Pacific Private Hospital in April 2005 and it is alleged Valentine and Gibbons neglected to tell doctors about a sustained drop in the 41-year-old's oxygen saturation levels.

The Supreme Court in Brisbane was told by anaesthetist Dr. Dennis Wooller when he last saw Mr Hammett, recovery nurses had dealt with a brief fall in oxygen saturation and he was satisfied with the treatment when the man left the recovery room.

The two accused were the only two night nurses on duty at the hospital at the time.

Dr. Wooller said if a patient could not be woken and oxygen levels remained dangerously low, nurses should call for urgent help.

The court heard that healthy people typically had oxygen saturation levels of about 99-100 per cent and in patients coming out of operations could drop as low as 93 per cent without causing alarm.

However below 85 per cent indicates a serious situation and it appears that even when Mr Hammett's level had plummeted to 60 per cent by 1am, no calls were made for emergency help.

Medical charts showed that by 2am Mr Hammett's level had dropped to 53 per cent by which time he was comatose and little could be done to revive him.

Mr Hammet's wife said her husband was very active, he was a hockey player and coach, elite golf instructor and head of the sport department at Robina High School.

She said on leaving the hospital at 9.15pm her husband appeared comfortable after being given morphine; she was then woken by a phone call from a male nurse at 3.08am, telling her that Mr Hammett had deteriorated and was being transferred to the emergency department at the Gold Coast Hospital across the street, he died shortly before she arrived.

The trial continues.