Sex in the pharmacy, dead body on the web and blunders covered up: Tribunal hears about 'hospital of scandal'
By Daily Mail Reporter
20th May 2010
Staff at an NHS hospital had sex in the pharmacy, posted photos of a dead body on the internet and covered up breast cancer diagnosis errors, it was claimed today.
Whistle-blower Maggie Southcote-Want, 48, former director of nursing at Milton Keynes Hospital, also claims that bodies were left dumped on the floor in the morgue.
The details of the damning allegations emerged in documents submitted to an employment tribunal where Ms Southcote-Want is claiming unfair dismissal.
She says she was forced into a series of cover-ups to prevent the scandals being made public at the under-fire hospital between 2005 and 2007.
In her tribunal statement she makes a list of astonishing incidents she was ordered to tackle before being sacked in 2007.
The shocking claims include:
Bodies disgracefully dumped on the floor of the mortuary fridge.
Dead body photographed and uploaded onto websites prompting a police probe.
Locum doctor secretly misdiagnosed vital breast cancer biopsies.
A fraud investigation in the pathology department.
Secret suspension of a top consultant because of surgical blunders.
Two employees caught red-handed having sex in the pharmacy during working hours.
Ms Southcote-Want, of Milton Keynes, Bucks., said: 'All of these were serious issues. I didn't feel comfortable covering them up so the public didn't find out.
'But those were my instructions so I had no choice. What I was meant to have done was so trivial compared to the things that were happening in the rest of the hospital at that time. It does not make sense.'
A public relations firm was drafted in after an investigation revealed mortuary staff were leaving bodies on the floor of the fridge in case it 'went public', Ms Southcote-Want claimed.
She also claimed police visited the hospital after pictures of a young motorcycle accident victim in the mortuary appeared on 'dubious' internet sites.
No arrests were made because it could never be proved who took the picture.
The suspension of a respected surgeon, who it is claimed accidentally cut bladders or bowels, was never made public in 2005, she added.
Neither was the NHS fraud squad investigation into payments to the pathology department staff the following year, she said.
Two pharmacy employees were caught having sex in broad daylight but reinstated after a brief suspension.
Her biggest concern was an alleged breast cancer biopsy scandal discovered in 2006 where a number patients may have falsely been given the all clear.
She added: 'A locum consultant had wrongly analysed a number of samples taken from women referred with breast lumps between 2003 and 2004.
'All the women had been given the all-clear. But now nobody knew whether that reading was correct.'
Ms Southcote-Want says she wanted to go public to ensure every potentially misdiagnosed single patient returned for a fresh biopsy.
The scandal was hushed up and despite attempts to contact the patients, three women could not be found, she said.
She was dismissed from her post as director of nursing in 2007 for allegedly giving a job to someone who was her friend.
Her legal battle has so far cost her £100,000 and is still continuing.
Ms Southcote-Want won her first employment tribunal hearing in 2008 but the hospital trust won an appeal Now the judge has ordered a fresh hearing to be held later this year.
The case has already cost the trust tens of thousands of pounds.
A spokesman for Milton Keynes Hospital said: 'We are confident that any untoward incidents involving the hospital were properly investigated by us according to the trust's corporate governance procedures and proper action was taken where necessary.'
The hospital denies any women were missing from the breast biopsy recall.
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