Indian origin doc found guilty of manslaughter in UK

London, Feb 7 (ANI): Indian-origin doctor Priya Ramnath has been given a six-month suspended jail term by a UK court for killing an intensive care patient with an injection of adrenaline after ignoring the advice of colleagues.

The Birmingham crown court on Friday convicted Ramnath, who worked in Britain's National Health Service, of manslaughter for her involvement in the death of Patricia Leighton.

The four-week hearing was told that Leighton, from Burntwood, near Cannock, Staffordshire, died of heart failure shortly after being given adrenaline by Ramnath at Stafford District General Hospital, The Independent reported.

Passing the sentence following the jury's 10-2 guilty verdict, Justice Rafferty ruled that the interests of justice did not require her to take away Ramnath's liberty.

The judge said Ramnath, a 40-year-old mother of two who lives in the United States, panicked in the "pressure cooker" of the Stafford hospital's intensive therapy unit.

Justice Rafferty added that the hospital registrar's defining error was that she had chosen not to listen to a sister working alongside her.

Ramnath, who came back to the UK last February after being threatened with extradition, also failed to speak to a consultant anaesthetist at Stafford District General before injecting the drug into Leighton.

Prosecutor Michael Burrows QC told the trial that Leighton was being treated in an intensive therapy unit when she died in the early hours of 22 July 1998.

Within moments of the injection, Burrows said, Leighton jerked forward in her bed before losing consciousness shortly afterwards.

Jurors were told that the 51-year-old suffered from arthritis and had been admitted to hospital in Cannock on 20 July after a wound on a bunion on her left foot became infected. (ANI)