An NHS worker who was drunk in an operating theatre while helping a woman undergo major surgery has been struck off.
Graham Whittall slurred his words and was unsteady on his feet while he was supposed to be monitoring the patient’s blood pressure and setting up a drip.
At one point the woman began to bleed heavily, but Whittall disappeared for 15 minutes.
A senior doctor admitted his assistant”s behaviour made him feel “vulnerable and afraid”.
Whittall had worked at Epsom and St Helier”s hospital in Surrey for more than 20 years.
He was an operating theatre practitioner helping prepare patients for anaesthetic and assisting surgeons during operations.
But he was already on a final warning after previously being caught drunk at work, a panel at the Health Professional Council in South London heard on Monday.
On the latest occasion, he arrived for work one day in July last year behaving “inappropriately”.
He was meant to be helping Dr Stanislaw Jankowski, a senior anaesthetist, prepare a woman for a myomectomy, a major operation to remove growths from her womb.
But Dr Jankowski feared that Whittall”s drunken behaviour was putting the patient at risk.
Mr Jankowski told the hearing that when the patient started to bleed, he feared her health was deteriorating but his “right-hand man” was not there to help him.
He said Whittall had been “bumbling around” and he could smell alcohol on his breath. “What struck me when I first arrived was Graham was acting in a slightly jovial, inappropriate manner,” he said.
“The procedure can be fraught with difficulties. On that particular morning she started to bleed quite heavily.
“I had asked Graham on several occasions that I would like some antibiotics and fluids, bits and pieces.
“I asked if we could have an intravenous drip set up and blood pressure cuff on - things that should have been done.
“Graham absented himself from theatre and got some things. He didn’t reappear for quite some time. He again absented himself for ten to 15 minutes, by which time this lady was really quite unwell.
“I felt quite vulnerable and afraid. This was a lady who was beginning to bleed and I didn’t have my assistant there to help me.
“I wasn’t getting what was required, things were beginning to slip.”
Other colleagues described how later that day Whittall had to steady himself by leaning on a table as he tried to apply a dressing to a patient’s arm.
But Whittall denied turning up to work drunk and said his behaviour was caused by sunstroke after a walk at lunchtime and problems sleeping the night before.
He was suspended on July 9 - the day after the incident - and was sacked by the trust in November last year.
On Tuesday the council struck him off the medical register. - IOL and Daily Mail