AN oncology ward at the Western General Hospital was short-staffed on the day a breast cancer patient died, a senior staff nurse today told a fatal accident inquiry.
Claire Smith, 31, was giving evidence at Edinburgh Sheriff Court into the death of Marlene Wightman, 49, of Dalkeith.
Mrs Wightman had her left breast removed on the morning of March 22, 2006, but died in the early hours of the following day.
M
iss Smith said Ward 3 was normally staffed by a charge nurse and four other nurses. If the charge nurse was absent, the next senior nurse took over.
On March 22, the charge nurse had called off sick and Miss Smith was in charge. She had three other nurses and a student. One of the nurses was experienced, the other two recently qualified.
Mrs Wightman was brought into the ward after her operation at 2pm.
Miss Smith said the recovery nurse showed her the medical charts and told her that Mrs Wightman's blood pressure and pulse were abnormal.
She had low blood pressure and a high pulse rate, but Miss Smith said she was not unduly concerned because she "had been assured by the medical staff".
She planned to check Mrs Wightman every 15 minutes in the first hour, every half hour for the next two hours and every hour thereafter.
On that day, however, she said they were short-staffed. There were eight other patients in the ward and the department was busy with out-patients and others.
She said: "It was a stressful day."
The nurse was then questioned about the timings of checks on Mrs Wightman. When members of the family gave evidence previously they denied that some checks had been carried out while they were there.
Miss Smith admitted she had copied down readings and timings from another chart.
Sheriff Isabella McColl asked her what had happened to the other chart and she replied: "I can't really say. Maybe I threw it away".
Fiscal depute Pauline Shade said: "If the timings are wrong, how do we know the readings are correct?"
Miss Smith said: "I know the readings are correct, but the timings may be wrong. Anyone can make a mistake. It looks like I made a mistake in the timings."
Asked why she had used a different chart, she said she could not find the proper one at the time as there was a lot of paperwork.
At 7.15pm that day, Miss Smith said she noticed a further drop in Mrs Wightman's blood pressure and called a house doctor.
The call was made at 7.45pm. Asked why she had waited so long, she said: "I got involved in other things." The doctor said she would "be along shortly".
Asked if she had passed on this information to the night staff, Miss Smith said she had not, as they had heard her on the phone to the doctor.
She also did not pass on any instructions to them to ensure the doctor came quickly, but did say she was "a bit worried". She then went home.
The nurse said that since the incident a protocol had been put in place among the nurses that, in the event of blood loss, the on-call consultant had to be contacted at an early stage.
If this had been in place at the time, she said, she would have contacted a consultant.
The inquiry continues.
The full article contains 578 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
