Filenews 22 November 2021
A British coroner expressed concern about the level of care received by members of British military families from doctors in Cyprus.
The forensic report from the Senior Coroner of the English County of Suffolk, Nigel Parsley, concerned the death of 41-year-old Victoria Harridge-Jones at her home inside British Military Bases of Cyprus, two days after Christmas 2019.
The primary cause of death was found to be pulmonary embolism, i.e. a clot in the lung, after a gastric by-pass operation that the 41-year-old had undergone eight days earlier.
As the coroner notes, the deceased had been discharged two days after the operation in a Limassol clinic. The next day, however, due to the intense pains she felt in the abdomen, due to peritonitis, an ambulance was called to her home.
It was recommended to use painkillers and for a few days the patient stated that she felt a little better. On the morning of December 27, however, she died due to a large clot that hit the lungs.
The coroner attributed the fatal thrombosis to the fact that it emerged that the attending physician stopped administering blood anticoagulant treatment as soon as the patient was discharged, that is, three days after the operation.
"This is the usual practice for all patients in Cyprus," the forensic report says, with Mr Parsley juxtaposing the rules of the British health system, which stipulate that patients recovering from such operations must continue to receive anticoagulant treatment for a period of "at least two weeks", even if they have been discharged.
Addressing the forensic report beyond the 41-year-old's relatives and to British Health Minister Ben Wallace, the coroner concludes: "I am therefore concerned that military personnel and their dependent family members who receive hospital secondary care from local providers while serving abroad may be receiving treatment after discharge that is not in line with the instructions of the competent British authority (NICE National Institute of Health Excellence Care) and which falls short of the level expected in the UK."
The coroner even calls on the minister to take initiatives "to prevent future deaths" of Britons linked to the armed forces abroad.
In a first reaction to the forensic report, a spokesman for the British Department of Defence told the BBC: "The health of all our people within the defence community is a top priority. We are looking at the areas identified by the coroner and will provide a full response in due course."
CNA
