Hospital whistleblower said doctor injected himself

A man whose wife died after blunders in her care was urged by a whistleblower to "ask questions" about a doctor seen injecting himself months earlier.

Jon Warby received a letter claiming the doctor "should never have been at work" when Susan Warby died in August 2018, as reported in The Guardian.

"He had injected himself before while in charge of a patient and it was all hushed up," the letter said.

West Suffolk Hospital said the doctor "no longer works at the trust".

Mrs Warby died five weeks after bowel surgery in which there were as series of errors, none of which has been attributed to the doctor in question.

An inquest, which has been adjourned, heard the 57-year-old mother of two was given glucose instead of saline through an arterial line.

She suffered a punctured lung during a further operation and a week later contracted a fungal infection. Her family agreed to remove active treatment.

The anonymous letter, received two months after Mrs Warby's death, added: "He [the doctor] was at work like nothing at all had happened - but we all knew the truth.

"You need to ask questions about this doctor and what investigations had been had about him before."

It has also emerged a consultant wrote to the hospital's medical director, Nick Jenkins, in March 2018 about the "great deal of concern" that the doctor was injecting himself with magnesium.

The letter states such actions "can cause hypotension and arrhythmias [irregular heartbeat]" so "the self-administration of this drug intravenously whilst being on call can therefore only put patient safety at risk".

The letter adds that the issue was "some time ago" but "no-one can be sure if similar incidents are still occurring or not".

A hospital spokesman said: "The individual no longer works at the trust, but as part of our duty of care support was provided to ensure they were fit and well to be at work during their time here."

It discussed its concerns with the General Medical Council, which did not take the matter any further.

Mr Warby told the inquest last month he was "knocked sideways" by the whistleblower's letter and was surprised at the lengths gone to to find its author.

The hospital had been accused by the Doctors' Association of conducting a "witch-hunt", with staff asked for fingerprints and handwriting samples.

It has since apologised and the Department of Health and Social Care has asked the NHS to commission a review into whistleblowing at the trust.

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