A locum registrar who killed a baby girl when he used “grossly excessive force” in a forceps delivery was struck off by the General Medical Council last week. However, he continues to evade police seeking to charge him with manslaughter in the case.
Vladan Visnjevac is now in Sarajevo, and Surrey police say that the Bosnian authorities are refusing to extradite him. He made no submissions to the hearing.
Newborn Hollie Dinning died at St Peter’s Hospital, Chertsey, Surrey, two days after delivery in May 2002, from a fractured skull and “massive” brain injuries. Dr Visnjevac had made four attempts to deliver her with forceps, using such force that her mother feared that she would be pulled off the table. “He was yanking so hard I thought my baby’s head was going to be pulled off,” Tracey Dinning told the hearing in a statement.
Dr Visnjevac should never have attempted a vaginal delivery in the first place, said expert witness John Hare, as the mother’s pelvis was too small and the baby’s position was not suitable. But Dr Visnjevac had ruled out a caesarean delivery over the telephone, without examining the patient.
He then attempted forceps delivery without ascertaining the position of the baby’s head. Instead of closing on the baby’s temples the forceps seized her head at the wrong angle and crushed it on closing. Hollie was delivered, not breathing, at the fourth attempt. No competent obstetrician, said Dr Hare, would have continued with the forceps after the second attempt.
Later, after the parents complained, Dr Visnjevac was questioned by police. He told them that the maximum force acceptable for a first baby delivered with forceps was 60 kg, nearly three times the actual limit of 23 kg. He failed to appear for a subsequent police interview in December 2002.
Hollie’s parents had already experienced a long string of misfortunes in their efforts to have children. Ms Dinning had had at least six miscarriages in her first marriage, which broke down as a result. In 2000 her best friend, Caroline Freeman, went to St Peter’s Hospital to deliver a child but died in labour.
Ms Dinning moved in with her friend’s partner, Jim, to help care for his two year old son. They fell in love, and she became pregnant, reaching term for the first time in her life with Hollie.
Last weekend the Daily Mail photographed Dr Visnjevac on a Sarajevo street and interviewed his parents, with whom he now lives (Daily Mail, 25 Apr, p 11). His mother told the newspaper that he had been unemployed since leaving Britain.
“He will never practise medicine again. He is very depressed,” she said, “and, being penniless, he lives off our retirement money.
“He has no life, and it is very sad for him. What happened at the British hospital has destroyed him. It has been a disaster for the little girl’s family but also a disaster for my son and for the wife and the children he has left behind in Britain.”
The Dinnings welcomed the GMC’s decision but added: “We hope that one day Visnjevac will be brought to trial to account for his devastating actions.”