An anaesthetist has gone on trial for manslaughter in France, accused of botching a caesarean after drinking, a procedure that left a young British woman dead.
Xynthia Hawke, 28, from Somerset, suffered a catastrophic cardiac arrest after the medic pushed a tube down her oesophagus and not her windpipe and then failed to realise her error, despite Hawke vomiting and crying out in pain.
The baby, a boy, was delivered at 10.22pm on 26 September 2014, but Hawke was starved of oxygen for several minutes and left in an irreversible coma despite efforts by paramedics to save her. She died four days later having never regained consciousness or seen her child.
Helga Wauters, 53, was the on-call anaesthetist at Orthez maternity hospital, in south-west France, when it was decided Hawke, who had wanted a natural birth, should undergo an emergency caesarean. During the investigation, Wauters told police she had been drinking with friends before being called and asked to return to the clinic to assist with the operation.
The anaesthetist was later found to have an alcohol level more than double the legal drink-driving limit in France.
She had admitted having a “pathological problem with alcohol” and carried a bottle of vodka and water in her pocket. She admitted she had been drinking before being called to the hospital to anaesthetise Hawke, but insisted she was “not drunk”.
“I was 70% capable,” she told investigators. She also blamed the tragedy on faulty operating theatre equipment and other staff.
Investigators discovered Wauters, a Belgian national, had been admitted to rehab for alcohol addiction on at least two occasions in the past. After one treatment for addiction, she resigned from her job in Belgium; she was subsequently fired from another medical post for gross misconduct reportedly linked to drinking.
Wauters was engaged by a French recruitment agency to work at the Orthez hospital just two weeks before Hawke’s death, but no checks were apparently made of her references and her new employers were said to have known nothing about her alcohol problems.
In July 2015, 10 months after the tragedy while awaiting trial, Wauters was stopped for drink driving. She told police she regularly drank several glasses of spirits every day.
Hawke’s partner, Yannick Balthazar, father of her son, her sister Iris, 36, and her parents, Fraser and Clare, are at the two-day hearing in Pau, south-west France.
The maternity clinic and a gynaecologist were originally charged in connection with Hawke’s death, but the cases against them were dropped.
“My sister’s life was put into the hands of an anaesthetist who was in no fit state to be working in a hospital or be in control of anyone’s life,” Iris Hawke told the Guardian two years ago.
“Xynthia was a sister, daughter, girlfriend, she was great fun and a really amazing person. She should never have been in that situation in a hospital. Nobody should.”
Wauters risks a maximum three-year jail sentence and a fine of up to €75,000 (£68,000) if found guilty of manslaughter. Her original defence team was led by Éric Dupond-Moretti, one of France’s best known lawyers, who was forced to hand the case to a colleague after he was named justice minister in July.
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