NHS blunder widower leaves UK

A Filipino man whose wife was killed by an NHS blunder has left Britain after being refused residency in Britain, his solicitor said.

Arnel Cabrera, 39, came to the UK five years ago after his theatre nurse wife Mayra was recruited to work at Great Western Hospital, Swindon. He was permitted to stay on the basis that his wife was working.

But on May 11 2004, Mrs Cabrera, 30, died following the birth of the couple's son Zac, who survived, after an epidural anaesthetic was wrongly fed via intravenous drip into her arm rather than into the space of her spinal cord.

When his wife died, so did Mr Cabrera's dream of living in the UK.

And last week the Home Office confirmed this by refusing his application for leave to remain.

Seamus Edney, Mr Cabrera's lawyer, said: "Arnel told me he was leaving Swindon to catch a 10am plane from Heathrow... He had just had enough.

"This is so wrong. On the one hand, someone like Abu Qatada can stay in Britain because of understandable concerns about his human rights, while on the other hand, Arnel Cabrera has his wife killed by the NHS and yet his human rights do not seem to be important.

"Even though he has gone back to the Philippines, we cannot let this rest."

Mr Edney, principal of SJ Edney, a personal injury law firm in Swindon, has set up an online petition at www.sjedney.co.uk calling on the Home Office to review its decision. "This petition is a final attempt to persuade the Home Office to look favourably on another application by Arnel made from the Philippines," he said.

In February this year, an inquest jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing, finding gross negligence manslaughter against Swindon and Marlborough NHS Trust and the midwife who attached the drip.

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