Patient abandoned during operation dies
A man in China has died on the operating table while his doctors and nurses tried to cope with a fire that broke out in the next room.
The official Xinhua News Agency and other reports said the 50-year-old man suffocated after being left unattended for 30 minutes while undergoing surgery to amputate his leg at the Shanghai Number Three People’s Hospital.
The reports said hospital staff were trying to douse the blaze, caused by a disinfecting machine that had caught fire.
Nurses and anaesthesiologists attending the patient left to seek help and when they did not return the doctors also left, abandoning the patient.
Police are investigating.
