A WOMAN bled to death following routine surgery after being placed on an under-staffed ward.

Hairdresser Pauline Freeman, 54, died after a routine hysterectomy on a ward which had only one qualified nurse.

Two hours after the operation, a ligature used to tie a main artery slipped, causing massive internal bleeding.

Mrs Freeman suffered a heart attack and died in the early hours of the morning after undergoing an emergency operation.

An inquest heard yesterday that the ward at Eastbourne District General Hospital had one qualified nurse and three auxiliary staff to look after 34 patients.

Timothy Colthart, an independent expert medical witness called by East Sussex coroner Alan Craze, said the ward Mrs Freeman had been recovering on was under-staffed and added nurses had failed to notice she was haemorrhaging.

Mr Colthart, a consultant gynaecologist and obstetrician from Queen Charlotte's Hospital, London, said: "On the ward there were beds for 20 gynaecological patients and 20 medical patients. By any standards I think that is an extremely large ward."

One staff nurse from the hospital's own nursing bureau had failed to turn up for work that evening.

Mr Craze recorded a verdict of accidental death at the inquest in Eastbourne.

But Mrs Freeman's devastated family have called on the Government to take action to prevent a similar incident in the future.

In a statement, the family's solicitor, Sarah Yessop, said: "The family remain profoundly affected by the loss and believe that the root of Mrs Freeman's death was caused by a lack of even basically adequate funding.

"They call upon the trust and the Secretary of State to learn rapid lessons and act swiftly to prevent a re-occurence of this unnecessary death."

Mrs Freeman's husband, Roy, 59, a civil engineer, of Little Common, near Bexhill, added: "I am extremely hurt by this. Pauline's death has affected my whole life. You can't imagine."

Senior surgeon Julian Shardlow, who operated on Mrs Freeman, said at the inquest the hysterectomy had gone to plan.

But at nearly 1am the following day, he was called to say his patient had suffered a heart attack.

He said in his 18 years at the hospital, a period in which he had performed hundreds of hysterectomies, he could recall only six occasions when the ligature used to tie off a main vessel had slipped.

He admitted that concern about staff shortages had been expressed previously at the hospital.

Nurse Pam Bennett, who was on duty on the night in question in March last year, was asked if she felt the staff on the ward that night was able to cope given an extremely heavy workload.

She said: "We could cope. But we could always do with another trained nurse."

Vicky Stephenson, an independent nursing consultant and an expert witness from the Royal College of Nursing, told the inquest how she believed having just one qualified nurse on the ward was insufficient.

She said: "I would expect, as a minimum, to have two trained nurses and two auxiliaries on that ward."

Ahospital spokesman said the trust was now looking into issues raised during the inquest.

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