Man who died weighing 8st 'too weak to be operated on' - inquest

EXPERTS "struggled to put the picture together" as to what was causing the breaking down of a 39-year-old man's bowel before he died in hospital having spent days in A&E, an inquest heard.

- JONATHON HILL

Father-of-five Damien Bedford, from Ely, Cardiff, died on September 12, 2022, in a gastroenterology ward at the University Hospital of Wales (UHW), Pontypridd Coroners' Court heard yesterday.

The court heard from doctors who specialise in bowel issues that the acute mesonteric ischemia that Mr Bedford suffered, meaning the sudden decreased blood flow to the small intestine which leads to tissue damage or perforation and ultimate death if untreated, was so rare that his chances of having it at his age were less than 0.1%.

The inquest heard how specialists on the ward had a strong indication that Mr Bedford had undiagnosed Crohn's disease, but they were at a loss as to what caused his condition to become so bad as to lead to his bowel becoming ischemic by the time of his death.

Mr Bedford's family believe his condition should never have got to such a level.

They have previously claimed he had been informing his GP surgery in Cardiff that he had been suffering with significant abdominal pains, was losing weight quickly, and was having regular diarrhoea since July of that year.

He had also told his GP surgery he had a strong familial history of Crohn's disease and believed he probably had it too. By the time he reached specialists at UHW days before his death those specialists agreed he may well have had Crohn's, but by that point he was too weak to have a colonoscopy to diagnose the condition or rule it out.

The inquest had already heard from Dr Emily Watkin, of Ely Bridge Surgery, who told the court Mr Bedford had been informing the surgery of his worsening symptoms since July 2022 and the surgery had escalated his pathway to gastroenterology specialists as an outpatient.