PATIENT’S COLLAPSE

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 94, 15 January 1935, Page 10

PATIENT’S COLLAPSE

Death Under Anaesthetic AMPUTATION OPERATION By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, January 14. The death of a widow, Mrs. Margaret Moss, aged 65, while under an anaesthetic at the Auckland Hospital on January 10, was investigated by Mr. Wyvern Wilson, S.M. Deceased, who. lived at Henderson, had been admitted to the Auckland Hospital on December 17 suffering from diabetes, and it was later found necessary as a result of the disease to amputate a foot. Dr. A. O. Knight said he was called on to administer the anaesthetic to deceased. Tlie stump where the amputation had been carried out had become gangrenous, and it was essential to operate. The operation had been postponed from the previous Monday because of the patient’s low state. “The operation was a desperate chance to save the patient from her suffering,” Dr. Knight added. “I was informed from the outset that her case was a bad one, and every care was taken.” He said that nitrous oxide and oxygen was used as the safest anaesthetic in tlie circumstances. Deceased’s pulse was weak from the beginning, and as the anaesthetic proceeded became shallower. As soon as the operation was over witness felt for deceased's pulse, but it had ceased. Questioned by Mr. Wilson, witness said that without the operation deceased’s duration of life would have been only a few days at the most. She had suffered from arterio-sclerosis and diabetes, which had weakened her and induced gangrene also. “I find that deceased's death occurred while in a state of general anaesthesia necessarily and properly administered for the purpose of a surgical operation,” said tlie corner.. “The cause of her death was diabetes and arterio-sclerosis accelerated by anaesthetics.”