The police are investigating about 40 hospital deaths on negligence charges filed by two consultant surgeons who lost their jobs after disclosing patient safety information, the local newspaper reported, adding that the botched surgeries were allegedly performed at the Brighton hospital.
Accidents that allegedly occurred during surgeries in general surgery and neurosurgery departments were reported from 2015 to 2020. For a long time, however, a thorough investigation was not conducted due to the obstruction of local organizations.
The two staff members fired were eminent surgeon Krishna Singh and consultant neurosurgeon Mansoor Foroughi, the newspaper said. Both were reportedly fired after they raised concerns about the high number of deaths and cases of serious harm inflicted on patients.
Singh told newspaper that cost-saving changes had been driven in an unsafe manner, leading to higher complication rates and patient mortality, while Foroughi said that at least two of the deaths were the result of a surgeon suffering from Parkinson's disease.
For months, the UK's NHS has suffered from a severe shortage of workers. More and more people have been leaving the profession amid excessive workloads, rising prices and a lack of opportunities to upgrade their skills. Thousands of UK ambulance workers staged protests during the winter, demanding higher wages amid surging inflation in the country. Other health care workers, including nurses, physical rehabilitation specialists, paramedics and their assistants also joined the strikes.