Newport man died after private weight loss surgery

A man died after weight loss surgery at a private hospital, an inquest heard.

Phil Morris, from Newport, died at the Spire St Anthony’s Hospital in Cheam, Surrey, in December 2021, four days after sleeve gastrectomy surgery.

It was hoped Mr Morris, 48, would return home two days after the surgery, but things started to go wrong.

Giving evidence at South London Coroner’s Court, Mr Morris’ wife, Dana, said her husband had elected to go private due to delays in NHS treatment.

Mr Morris, an actor, writer and university lecturer, was a founding member of Wales Arts Review, and from 2012 to 2016 was its managing director.

The family had moved to south London from Newport in 2016.

The inquest was told that Mr Morris was diagnosed with diabetes in 1995, initially thought to be type 1 but a further assessment in 2018 found that he actually had type 2 diabetes.

He was also diagnosed with sleep apnoea in 2007.

Mr Morris underwent a bariatric assessment in 2018 but was unable to have the treatment then because his diabetes was not under control.

He later had the surgery privately in 2021 because of delays in treatment on the NHS, the inquest heard.

According to the NHS, the sleeve gastrectomy procedure involves removing a large part of the stomach so it is much smaller than it was before, meaning you cannot eat as much as you could and feel full sooner.

Mrs Morris’ evidence, which was read to court, told how her husband had difficulty swallowing and was short of breath in the hours after the surgery and that his condition, including numbness along his right side, worsened over the following days.

She said she felt the surgeon had been dismissive about her husband’s difficulties and became frightened and sick when Mr Morris sent her a picture in which he looked vacant in his eyes, as though he had suffered a stroke.

The night before his death, Mrs Morris said she was called to the hospital after her husband left the ward and was outside in an agitated state.

She described how he was confused and telling their son to run because it was an unsafe place.

Phil Morris was eventually persuaded to return to the ward for treatment, but he died in the early hours of 10 December 2021.

The inquest also heard from Dr Anwar Hussain, a consultant anaesthetist who worked with the Spire hospital.

He said he was called in at around midnight to help with cardiac resuscitation of Mr Morris, explaining how the doctors working on him were having difficulty in accessing an air way to ventilate him.

Dr Hussein told the coroner it was probably too late to save Mr Morris by the time he arrived at the hospital.