AN INQUEST into the death of a 69-year-old York man at York Hospital was being held today.
Lawyers for the family of John Hatfield say he was having longterm treatment for a relatively common condition causing irregular heart rhythm when he was admitted to the hospital on May 1 last year.
They claim he suffered a cardiac arrest, from which he never regained consciousness, only eight hours after admission, after medical staff had failed to monitor him and delayed in providing basic life-saving treatment.
Expert medical negligence lawyer Katie Warner said his family had been left “completely devastated”, and they hoped the inquest would shed more light on the circumstances which led to it.
She added that a report compiled by the hospital trust had indicated a number of failings in the care given to him before he died.
A spokeswoman for York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said it was sorry for the circumstances surrounding Mr Hatfield’s death, and had already provided a full apology to his family.
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