Dr Isyaka Mamman, who is believed to be 85, was once suspended as a medical watchdog for lying about his age and was sacked, but was then re-employed at Royal Oldham Hospital, where he was responsible for a number of critical incidents before fateful rendezvous, Manchester Crown Court was told. Mamman had used various birth dates and left his previous job after “poor performance”. Maman, of Royton, near Oldham, will be sentenced on Tuesday after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing to manslaughter by gross negligence. The judge told him to be prepared to spend time in jail. The court heard that Shahida Parveen, 48, went to hospital with her husband, Khizar Mahmood, for a routine bone marrow biopsy procedure as part of investigations into a possible myeloproliferative disorder. Mamman, who was a hematology specialist, underwent the procedure, which normally takes bone marrow samples from the hip. Instead, Mamman attempted a rare and “highly dangerous” procedure of attempting to extract samples from Parveen’s sternum, Andrew Thomas QC, prosecuting, told the hearing. Despite objections from the patient and her husband, Mamman continued to use a faulty biopsy needle, missed the bone and punctured Parveen’s pericardium – which contains the heart – causing fatal internal bleeding. After Parveen passed out as soon as the needle was inserted, her husband ran from the room shouting, “He killed her. I told him to stop three times and he didn’t listen. He killed her.” A cardiac arrest team arrived at the scene and Parveen was pronounced dead later that day, September 3, 2018. The court heard that in 2015 a formal complaint was made to Oldham Hospital by a patient who said Mamman had used “excessive force” during a bone marrow biopsy. The patient was assured that Mamman would take on light duties in the future and was told that while the doctor was in his 70s and his colleagues believed he should retire, they could not fire him just because of his age. Mamman performed another bone marrow procedure that same year, in which he inserted the needle in the wrong place and left a patient permanently disabled. Mamman qualified as a doctor in Nigeria in 1965 and began working in the UK in 1991. His actual age was a matter of dispute, the court heard, as his hometown in rural Nigeria had no official birth registration system. Mamman initially said he was 21 when he began his medical training, making him 81 at the time of the fatal incident. However, in 2001, as he approached the mandatory retirement age of 65, he changed his date of birth to October 1947, which would have meant he was 10 when he started his medical degree. Defense barrister Michael Hayton said it was clear Maman should not be allowed to continue treating patients, but argued he was “not the only person to blame”. He said: “There has been a terrible list of failures of the trust since 2015.” The hearing was adjourned until Tuesday morning.
