Teenage girl dies in Bristol after being operated on by torchlight

A teenage girl died after being operated on by torchlight because of a lack of staff in the operating theatres at Bristol children's hospital, an inquest heard.

Emma Welch, a 14-year-old charity fundraiser from Somerset, suffered a heart attack and internal bleeding during the night after undergoing a relatively routine spinal procedure in June last year.

She required urgent surgery, but only two out of the nine operating theatres were open and they were both being used.

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"There were not enough anaesthetists or emergency staff to open another theatre so medics had to operate on her by torchlight on a ward," reports the Daily Telegraph.

Emma lost blood rapidly and died in the early hours of 4 June.

Paying tribute to her daughter during the inquest at Avon Coroner's Court, Lesley Welch said: "She was bright and bubbly, a girl who enjoyed sharing a smile and a laugh. The impact of our loss is just too huge to begin to describe."

Consultant Dr Margrid Schindler, who looked after Emma in intensive care, told the inquest the teenager should have been taken to an operating theatre right away, but "there was no team available".

Emma's family are now calling for improved theatre capacity at the hospital and more teams to cover emergencies during the night.

However, surgeon Ian Harding, who carried out the original procedure, told the inquest: "If we had got her to theatre half an hour, an hour earlier, I think the outcome would have been exactly the same."

The hospital insisted that appropriate staff were on duty and that it was unusual to have more than two theatres open during the night, The Guardian reports. The coroner concluded that Emma had died "from the unintended consequence of planned and necessary medical treatment".

But the Daily Mirror argues "something is badly wrong" when surgeons are forced to operate by torchlight because there is not enough staff to open a theatre.

"Doctors warning that new contracts are dangerous for patients deserve to be heeded when, as happened in Bristol on that children's ward, medics attempt to perform against the odds in an NHS squeezed by the Tories."