Dear  sir/madmeI am Mr Tong, my father has just passed away three wks ago,after the hernia surgery.The doctor said my father system got infected.Let me tell you something about my father s health. He had got a renal failure, he was on the peritoneal dialysis for about 2 yrs or so. My father did very well with the dialysis procedures.he was very careful and hygenic. On 17 of August 2013 he s got a tummy pain he took Paracetamol to relieve the pain, the pain had gone on and offand on Sunday 18 he still got pain and got a couple of vomit, so my mum recommend him to go to the hospital to check.The surgeon doctor found that he had got a hernia pain aroun his groin. He had to have surgery. I was told that the the surgery will take about 45 minuttes , but it ended up  6 hrs, because the surgeon had open another cut around his tummy, he suspected that the hernia pain may not be only one problem that causse the tummy pain.Before the surgery my father was due to do the peritoneal dialysis,but it delayed 2 hrs and he ended up doing the surgery without diong the dialysis.After the surgery my father was fine he even told me that all the pain disappeared. The doctor came to check and said everything was good and told my father tha t he can drink clear soup or drink if. He felt like to.On  Tuesday 20 August my father needs to do Hemo -dialysis , in the dialysis room he felt very cold and i was told by one of the nurses that it was quite normal.The Doctor had organised a CT scan to check if something was not right from the surgery. The result was fine.so the doctor called for a family meeting we was told that there was a bowel obstruction , the bowel was not working and there was bugs in my fathers system and even told that the surivival reate was as low as 10%.and duto to my father was very old (73) and he was on the PD and also had two surgery it was very hard for to cope . He is very weak to fight the infection.The doctor suspected that the infection may come from the tube( for the hemo - dialysis), but the tube was not removed , until wednesday it was tested it was positive. So my father suffered the pain the whole Tuesday night and did not wake up on wednesday  , the doctor just gave him antibiotic and painkiller. He was in coma for a couple of day s and passed away on Saturday. During that period he still can breathed , he cant talk he can move his fingers when we asked him. But the doctor said he was already die they can do anything even he stiill breathed.My questions to you is that is there any handling error during the treatment or before the surgery?Was my father given the enough antibiotic(high dose)?If the tube was remove early and tested would it possible to save his life?If the surgeon did not open another cut around his tummy, will it reduce the pain?Thank you so much for ypur answers. I am looking forward to hearing from you.Best Regards,
Dear sir, my sincere condolences to you and your family. It is always hard to lose a near and dear. You have managed to give quite a bit of information about the circumstances around your dads terminal illness and treatment, however in order to give a professional advice it is not sufficient.1. Firstly, when my peritoneal dialysis patients have pain in their abdomen, they see me (nephrologist) first rather than a surgeon. I usually thoroughly examine the patient and do multiple tests before I can identify the problem. Only when I identify a surgical problem do I call the surgeon. I hope all this happened in your dads case.2. After the initial operation, whatever complications ensued, it will be wrong on anyone's part to comment on them without thoroughly studying your dads' case notes. Apologies for not answering your questions, but doing so will be inappropriate in my view. Best wishes. RB