by Joanna Neil
A knot formed in Katie stomach. After all this time, just when she thought she was in the clear, was the whole horrible incident coming back to haunt her once again?
Alex’s glance went over her briefly. ‘It appears that one of your former patients is launching a complaint against you. He’s consulting with a firm of solicitors with a view to taking you to court.’
Katie’s legs felt as though they were crumbling beneath her. Blindly, she fumbled for the arm of a chair and awkwardly sat down.
Alex was quiet, waiting, but when she didn’t say anything, he said briskly, ‘You were expecting this, weren’t you?’
‘I wasn’t sure. There was a problem, but I didn’t know whether it would come to anything.’ She stared up at him. ‘What is the patient complaining about? What charges is he bringing?’
‘He wants to sue for malpractice. He claims that he was injured as a result of surgery that you carried out on him. He’s asking for compensation for the stress that he endured and the time that he was unable to work as a result of that injury.’
His gaze pierced her like a laser. ‘Why on earth didn’t you warn me? As it is, I have management telling me that I need to suspend you while this is investigated. They want to know how it was that none of this came up when you were employed here. I knew nothing about it, so how could I possibly defend you?’
Katie swallowed hard. ‘I’m sorry. I hoped that it wouldn’t come to this. I thought it was going to be all right, and I thought that because he had signed a permission form I would be covered against any possible action.’
‘Well, it isn’t all right, by any means. He’s saying that the event occurred because you carried out a procedure you weren’t qualified to do.’
‘No, that’s right, I wasn’t.’ Katie was shaking inside. Her whole world had collapsed about her, and Alex was looking at her in a way that he had never done before. His mouth made a straight line and his jaw was clenched. There was no way that she could repair the damage.
‘Do I have to leave right now?’ Her gaze flickered. ‘Will I be allowed to do any kind of work within the hospital?’
‘All I can tell you is that the hospital chiefs are taking a hard line about any kind of complaint or misdemeanour that they hear about. They worry about meeting targets and the reputation of the hospital, and they have to be sure that any doctor who works here is competent. People are too conscious of league tables nowadays. Everyone has to be whiter than white.’
‘I can understand that.’ Katie pressed her lips together to stop them from trembling. ‘Are they doubting your judgement in taking me on?’
Alex didn’t answer. ‘That isn’t the point right now.’
‘Isn’t it?’ She looked up at him, her blue eyes troubled, her mind numb. ‘I didn’t mean this to happen,’ she said in a choked voice. ‘I know how much your promotion means to you, and I can’t bear to think that I might have set it back. Believe me, I didn’t think it would come to this.’
‘It’s too late for regrets now. Tell me what happened.’ His features were hard edged, and his whole demeanour was tense.
Katie passed her tongue over her dry lips. ‘My patient was very ill and I suspected that he was suffering from a pulmonary embolism. I called on my consultant for help, but he wasn’t available so I asked the registrar what I should do. He said we would do a pulmonary angiography and he told me that if there was a large blockage to the artery we would try to remove it or disperse it.’
She pulled air into her lungs and tightened her hands to stop them from shaking. ‘We took the man up to Theatre and we managed to find the embolism. It was removed successfully and the registrar was instructing me throughout the process. We were both watching the monitor as I manoeuvred the catheter. Everything seemed to be going well, but as I was preparing to withdraw the catheter I saw what looked like an aneurysm in the blood vessel. I thought perhaps it had occurred because the patient had been hypertensive and perhaps that had weakened the artery wall.’
She hesitated for a moment, trying to calm herself. Having to tell him about what had happened brought the memory of those events back to her in full force, and the horror of the situation even now was enough to make her feel weak and faint. ‘I’m not sure exactly what happened next, but I think the lights in the theatre failed for a moment or two. There was a major storm outside and we had been experiencing a few problems, but then the generator kicked in.’
She pressed her lips together, flattening them against her lower teeth. ‘The next thing I knew, my patient was bleeding from a rupture in the artery. I was trying to stem the blood flow, but I wasn’t getting anywhere, and Helen, the nurse who was assisting, was telling me that the patient had gone into cardiac arrest.’
‘What was the registrar doing while all this was going on?’
‘He had turned away. He had his back to me and he seemed to be unwell. Then he collapsed. Apparently he was suffering from appendicitis at the time. He’d had pain for some weeks but he’d ignored it, thinking it was just a rumbling abdominal problem that would go away.’ She winced. ‘It was just unfortunate that it chose that moment to become acute.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘I asked one of the theatre nurses to go and call for help, both for the registrar and for my patient, while I did what I could to resuscitate the man on the table. It was a massive bleed, and I had to send for blood to transfuse him. I was afraid I was going to lose him.’
‘Those kinds of haemorrhages are fatal, more often than not.’ Alex’s eyes had darkened, and he was watching her intently. ‘But your patient is still around to tell the tale. How did you stop the bleeding in the end?’
‘I did a transcatheter embolisation, using coils of wire to support the walls of the artery.’
‘How on earth were you able to do that? I’m surprised you had the skills.’
Katie’s mouth made an odd shape. ‘So was I. I’d watched other surgeons do it before that, because I was particularly interested in that aspect of surgery. I’d thought at one time that I might want to specialise, but after what happened that day I didn’t want to see a theatre again.’
‘I should think that’s hardly surprising. I can’t imagine how you coped.’
‘Neither can I, to be honest. It was nerve-wracking because it was such a horrendous bleed, and I had a struggle to prevent the haemorrhage from causing problems with his other lung. It was a nightmare from start to finish.’
Alex had started to pace the floor. ‘So, because of the cardiac arrest and because the patient lost a lot of blood, he had to stay in hospital for much longer than he might have done originally?’
Katie nodded. ‘We had to ensure that his blood pressure remained stable as well. His relatives knew from the first that something was wrong because he was in Theatre for much longer than expected.’
She sent him a worried glance. ‘What happens now? Will there be an investigation? These things take a long while to sort out, don’t they?’
‘They may do.’ He pulled in a sharp breath and straightened as though he had come to a decision. ‘Look, Katie, I’m going to have to get reports from various people who were involved. It’s management policy that you won’t be able to carry out any of your normal duties here until we’ve resolved this, and it depends on how they view things as to whether you’ll be allowed to carry out other tasks. What I suggest you do is take a few days’ leave. I’ll let you know as soon as I have anything positive to tell you.’
‘All right.’ Her mouth wavered with uncertainty. ‘I’ll get my things together.’ She made an attempt at a smile. ‘I suppose there’s one good thing to come out of this—Jessica will be pleased to have me at home with her.’ She frowned. ‘And I suppose it will give me time to look through the job vacancy columns.’
‘Let’s wait and see what happens before you do that, shall we?’
‘I’d say the odds were stacked against me, wouldn’t you? I performed procedures that I wasn’t qualified to do w
ithout supervision, and the patient seems to be saying that I caused the rupture of the artery in the first place. I don’t think that’s true, but I can’t prove it.’
‘Even so, it may not come to a court case if we can sort this out at a local level.’
He was being as encouraging as he could in the circumstances, and Katie appreciated that. She was thoughtful as she made her way towards the door.
‘But if it does…Nathan said he might be able to help me if there was a problem. I suppose I could ask him if there’s anything he could do. He might know a specialist lawyer who could act for me.’
Alex looked at her with narrowed eyes. ‘You told him about it?’
Katie nodded miserably. ‘It sort of came up when I first moved into the house and was still pretty much preoccupying me. I’ve been trying to push it to the back of my mind ever since. I know that I ought to have told you, but I was hoping that as nothing further had happened, it would all go away.’
‘These things never go away. You’re right, you should have told me so that I could have been prepared for all of this. Now all I can do is try to mop up the mess.’ He frowned. ‘As to Nathan, I believe your former hospital will provide their own lawyers if it becomes necessary.’
He started to gather up papers from the table and Katie hesitated, her fingers resting on the handle of the door. ‘Will you call me and let me know if there’s any news?’
‘Of course. Go home, Katie. I’ll do what I can to put this right.’
Katie went to the doctors’ lounge and started to collect her belongings. He hadn’t said anything about his hopes for promotion, but she guessed they had been dashed. It was all her fault, and she didn’t know how to make amends.
Things had started off so well that morning, and she still remembered the way he had made her feel when he had taken her into his arms and kissed her. It had been as though she belonged there. Her mouth began to tremble. He wouldn’t want her now. She had ruined everything for him, and his faith in her had gone.
CHAPTER TEN
‘IT ISN’T fair.’ Jessica was frowning heavily. She was sitting at the kitchen table, trying to fit the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together. ‘I don’t see how they can blame you and say you hurt the man when you saved his life.’
‘I don’t think the hospital managers see it quite that way,’ Katie said. She had finished ironing the last few items from her laundry basket, and now she was getting ready to put the clothes away. She sighed. ‘At least now I have plenty of time to do all these chores,’ she said.
The doorbell sounded, and Jessica got to her feet. ‘I’ll answer it. Do you think it will be Alex?’
Katie’s heart gave a sudden lurch before settling back into its normal rhythm once more. ‘I shouldn’t think so.’
Alex had given her a call just the day before to say that he had spoken to the registrar who had been in Theatre with her and asked him to give him a written account of what had happened. He was trying to get in touch with Helen, the nurse who had assisted her, but so far he hadn’t had any luck in finding her.
‘You said that she was young and single,’ he had said. ‘I suppose there’s a possibility that she might have married. Do you have any idea as to whether she was involved with someone?’
‘There was a doctor who worked in the renal unit. I know that they were very close. I’ve already tried to find her, but she must have moved on to another hospital. She said she wanted to specialise in paediatrics.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
Alex’s tone had been brisk, and he would have rung off there and then, except that Katie said quickly, ‘I was thinking of taking Jessica into town tomorrow. Would you like to meet us at the pizza house near the hospital? I thought perhaps we could talk for a while.’
‘I can’t do that, Katie. I’ve several meetings set up, and then I have to go away for a couple of days or so. I’ll give you a ring when I get back, if you like.’
‘Yes, that would be fine.’ Katie was disappointed. She wasn’t going to hold her breath. He hadn’t given her any clue as to where he was going, and she remembered that he had some leave due. Perhaps he was going to take that break by the coast that he had talked about some time ago.
The thought bothered her more than she could have imagined. She desperately wanted him to be here by her side, and she longed for the sound of his deep, warm voice, soothing her worries away, but none of that was going to happen, was it? He may have kissed her and held her close, but all that was over now, wasn’t it? She had let him down and things would never be the same again.
‘Katie…look. You’ll never guess who’s here…’ Jessica’s voice was filled with surprise and more than a hint of excitement, so that Katie came out of her reverie and looked over to where she was standing by the door to the kitchen.
‘Mum…Dad,’ she said, her eyes widening. She put down the cotton top that she had been folding and went to greet them. ‘I had no idea you were planning on coming over here.’
‘Well, we thought we would come and see how you were both doing.’ Katie’s mother was smiling as she gave her a hug. ‘Jessica rang to tell us what had happened at the hospital, and we thought you might need a bit of support.’ She ran a hand through her thick brown hair, tucking it back behind her ears. ‘We booked ourselves into a hotel just a little way from here. I know you don’t have a lot of room in the cottage.’
‘I’m sure I could have managed to squeeze you in somehow. It’s lovely to see you both.’ Katie gave her stepfather a warm embrace. ‘Are you sure you can spare the time to be away from work? I know how busy you are.’
‘That’s the thing…work has always been my driving force, and it doesn’t seem to have brought me anything but stress.’ He looked down at her, and she could see that there were flecks of silver in his hair and lines of strain around his eyes. ‘We’ve been able to have a lot of long chats about things, your mother and I, over the last few weeks, and we’ve come to the conclusion that perhaps there’s more to life than constant struggle. We have some savings put by, and if I take the redundancy being offered we thought we might try our hand at running our own business. It might be less stressful.’
Katie was astonished. ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this. Come and sit down, both of you, and tell me all about it.’ At least having her parents here would help to take her mind off her troubles for a while.
‘I’ll put the kettle on, shall I?’ Jessica asked.
‘That’s a good idea.’
Over the next few hours Katie and Jessica sat and talked with their parents. It was strange, but there seemed to be something different about both of them. Her mother was much more relaxed and her stepfather was more animated than she had seen him in a long time. They hadn’t decided yet what kind of business they would run, and they were more anxious to talk about any worries that Katie and Jessica had.
A couple of days later they were getting ready to return home. ‘If you’re not working at present,’ her mother said, ‘why don’t you both come back home and spend a few days with us?’
‘I think I’d like that,’ Katie answered. She glanced at Jessica, who was nodding in agreement. ‘It might give me the break I need, and it will be good for Jess to see her friends again. I can always keep in touch with the hospital by phone if there’s anything I need to deal with.’
It didn’t take her long to pack for the trip…all she needed was a couple of changes of clothes and her make-up bag.
The journey seemed to take no time at all, and as she approached the broad sweep of the mouth of the Humber, it was as though she had never been away. Settling back into her old house with her parents and Jessica gave Katie an oddly nostalgic sensation, but above all it gave her the time out that she needed.
Jessica went to call on her friends, and looked happy to be home. Katie was pleased for her.
Throughout the weekend that she stayed in her parents’ home, Katie tried not to think about what was going on elsewhere. There we
re no calls from Alex, and she began to accept that he might want to distance himself from her.
‘You miss him, don’t you?’ Jessica said.
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Have things gone wrong between you?’
‘Sort of.’
‘Is it because of me?’
Startled, Katie looked at her sister and saw the uncertainty in her eyes. ‘No, Jess. What makes you think it was because of you?’
Jessica gave an awkward shrug. ‘I know how you like each other, but I was afraid that if you and he were too close…there would be no room for me. I know I wasn’t always nice to him. I didn’t really mean to turn him off you. I just…I was afraid that you wouldn’t want me around any more.’
Katie gave her sister a hug. ‘I’ll always want you around, Jess, believe me. You’re my sister, and you mean the world to me. I’m always going to be there for you, even if you’re living here and I’m in the Lake District. You only have to call.’
‘You mean it?’
‘I mean it.’
Jessica gave a little sigh of contentment. ‘I do like him, and he was really good to me. He will come back to you, won’t he?’
‘Maybe.’ Katie daren’t think about the alternative. What if she had lost him for ever?
She tried to turn her mind away from melancholy thoughts. Instead, she helped her parents to work through ideas for their new venture, and watched as Jessica began to relax in their company once more. There seemed to have been a general change for the better all around.
On Monday, Katie was ready to go back and face her difficulties once more.
‘Will you be happy to stay on here?’ she asked Jessica. ‘I’ll come and see you next week, and we can perhaps arrange for you to come and stay with me again for a while, if you’d like that.’
‘That’s great,’ Jessica said with a smile. ‘Yes, I’ll be fine. I’d like to meet up with Sophie and Jade again, though, soon.’
‘We’ll sort something out,’ Katie promised.
