Central News, Press Room, Central Criminal Court,

Central News, Press Room, Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, LONDON, EC4.

Tel: 020 7236 0116
Pix: 020 7329 2877.

General Medical Council/ps
eMail: news@centralnews.

co.

uk
http://www.

centralnews.

co.

uk
11 September 2001

addcavalier.

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2

Dr Matheson said she refused to work for Walker after she began having sleepless nights worried about his patients.

She wrote a letter to him in April 1996 saying she was ‘too tired’ to continue as his assistant.

But she told the committee: ‘I was trying to be tactful.

‘You can’t write a letter to a surgeon and tell him that he’s incompetent.

‘

She had made her first complaint as early as December 1995 when a 70-year-old woman died after losing 30 pints of blood during liver surgery.

In April 1996 Dr Matheson said she was no longer prepared to anaesthetise for major oesophagus and liver operations.

She wrote to Mr Walker: ‘Dear Steve, it’s clear that your lists are increasingly involving patients with major surgical procedures.

‘These operations involve long hours in theatre which I find too tiring and I am therefore no longer willing to perform these procedures.

‘

A year later she withdrew her support completely.

‘By this time I was beginning not to sleep on Sunday nights because I was worried what was going to happen to patients the next day.

‘I realised if I went on working for him I was going to become ill.

‘

The hearing continues.

ends

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