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A court in France sentenced a Belgian anesthetist to three years in prison and banned her from practicing medicine for the death of a British woman following an emergency cesarean section.
Helga Wauters, 51, was convicted of manslaughter in the death of Xynthia Hawke, who died four days after a chaotic procedure that deprived her brain of oxygen.
Ms Hawke, whose baby survived, was overdue when she was admitted to the maternity ward at Orthez Hospital, near the southwestern city of Pau, on September 26, 2014.
Wauters, who had been on the job for less than two weeks, inserted a ventilation tube into Ms. Hawke’s feeding tube instead of into her windpipe.
He also allegedly used an oxygen mask instead of a ventilator.
Wauters was not in court for the ruling.
He admitted to starting the day with a mixture of vodka and water, “like every day” for the previous ten years.
But she denied being solely responsible for Ms. Hawke’s death.
She insisted that other staff members were to blame as well and claimed the fan was not working at the time.
However, the investigation concluded that this statement was not true.
Wauters had given Ms. Hawke an epidural local anesthetic earlier that day. During the delivery, complications arose that required an emergency cesarean section.
When she returned to the maternity ward after being called in for general anesthesia, Wauters had alcohol on her breath, according to witnesses.
Ms. Hawke woke up during the operation and began to vomit and scream “it hurts” before having her tubes pulled out.
A nurse on duty described the scene as a war zone. “It was Baghdad,” he said.
Wauters told investigators that he had a “glass of rose wine” with friends before returning to the hospital.
Right after being stopped, her blood alcohol content was found to be 2.38 grams per liter, which normally corresponds to about ten glasses of wine, and is more than four times the level allowed when driving in France.
The Pau court ordered Wauters to pay almost € 1.4 million in damages to Ms. Hawke’s relatives.
“Justice has set an example for this type of doctor who, in my opinion, is not a doctor,” said Yannick Balthazar, Hawke’s partner, who was present at the ruling.
Wauters had moved to France to work after being fired from her job at a Belgian hospital for looking drunk at work.
The recruiting agency that hired her on behalf of the clinic had not verified her credentials, the investigation revealed.
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