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The operation succeeded, but the patient died By Ran Reznick Tags: israel news "Grave medical negligence" by the medical and nursing staff at Herzliya Medical Center hospital caused the death of Herve Crief following cardiac surgery, according to a lawsuit filed in recent weeks by the family. Crief who was 34 at the time of his death, underwent the surgery in August 2006. His family claims that after the operation, which was supposed to repair a valve in his heart, doctors informed them that "the operation was successful." However, while in the intensive care, his condition deteriorated, he needed another operation and died later that night. The suit was filed at the Petah Tikva District Court against the Herzliya Medical Center hospital and cardiac surgeons Professor Bernardo Vidne and Dr. Boris Gendel, who operated on the patient. The suit is based upon the medical opinion of cardiac surgeon Dr. Ron Amar and was filed by Herve's wife Rachel Crief and their four children. The family is represented by attorney Ahuva Ticho. A defense brief has not yet been filed. Advertisement The suit complains no complaints about the heart surgery performed by Professor Vidne. However, it contains unique allegations for a suit of this sort, claiming he "chose to perform the surgery at a hospital that is not suited for high-risk operations, did not ascertain that the medical and nursing staff in intensive clear were qualified, careful and skilled regarding the patient's follow-up treatment after valve repair surgery, and did not give suitable and precise instructions concerning follow-up and the supervision of his condition in intensive care." Herve Crief and his family immigrated to Israel from France in 2005, settling in Ashdod. According to the family, Crief was healthy and had no illnesses until 2006, when he was diagnosed with a defective heart valve and was recommended to undergo corrective surgery. He decided to have the surgery performed by Professor Vidne, one of the leading and most senior heart surgeons in Israel, who until 2006 was also the head of the cardiothoracic surgery unit at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva. In July of 2006 Vidne examined Crief and told him and his wife Rachel, according to court documents, "the operation had a 99-percent chance of success, and to the deceased's question as to who was in the remaining 1 percent, Vidne assured him only the elderly." The surgery was performed around noon on August 6, 2006 at the Medical Center. During the operation, the valve was corrected, in accordance with usual practices, and the patient was temporarily hooked up to an external pacemaker to treat irregular heartbeats. In the afternoon he was transferred to the intensive care unit at the hospital. There, according to the suit, the automatic blood pressure monitor was not working properly, causing the warning lights to remain off. As a result, for 18 minutes the staff did not track his blood pressure and the pacemaker. According to the suit, during those critical minutes the staff "was negligent and did not carry out blood pressure checks and did not track the activity of the pacemaker, as it should have." Ultimately, after the doctors diagnosed the patient's collapse, resuscitation measures began and he was brought back into an operating theater. He was pronounced dead at 3 A.M. In his professional opinion, heart surgeon Dr. Amar, formerly deputy head of the cardiothoracic surgery department at Carmel Medical Center in Haifa, wrote, "This is an operation with low mortality rates and significant success rates. His young age and the absence of any other illness theoretically ensured [the patient] a quality of life and a life expectancy similar to those of the healthy population. The outcomes of the surgery as documented in the medical record should have ensured this. "[However] the inadequate conduct of the medical and nursing staff at the Medical Center, which was responsible for him during his stay in intensive care following the heart surgery - led to the expected results not passing the test of the reality. The staff failed to understand the use of the pacemaker in his case and did not take care to follow its measurements in a professional manner. Their lack of awareness about his condition led to their inability to diagnose the decline in his condition - which led to irreversible heart failure. Further on, every possible effort was made to save his life but the heart failure in the wake of the staff's negligent conduct was fatal by all accounts, and led directly to his death." Bookmark to del.icio.us   The 'beauty machine' Want to optimize your looks without radically altering them? now you can. Lebanon needs unity Khamenei to Lebanese President: Iran will always stand beside Lebanon.

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