AN 85-year-old Nigerian doctor Isyaka Mamman has been sentenced to three years in prison after a botched routine procedure he insisted on against a patient’s will resulted in fatality.

Mamman, who admitted gross negligence manslaughter, had already been sacked by medical watchdogs for lying about his age but was re-employed by the Royal Oldham Hospital, where he was responsible for a series of critical incidents.

His victim, 48-year-old Shahida Parveen, who was a mother of three had gone to the hospital with her husband, Khizar Mahmood, on September 3, 2018, for investigations into possible myeloproliferative disorder.

A bone marrow biopsy had been advised and the routine procedure was allocated to Mamman, who was working as a specialty doctor in haematology.

Prosecutor Andrew Thomas, QC, told the hearing that bone marrow samples are normally taken from the hip bone but Mamman failed to obtain a sample at the first attempt.

Instead, he attempted a rare and “highly dangerous” procedure of getting a sample from Parveen’s sternum – despite objections from the patient and her husband.

Mamman, using the wrong biopsy needle, missed the bone and pierced her pericardium, the sac containing the heart, causing massive internal bleeding and immediately Parveen lost consciousness.

Following her death, a consultant provided an expert opinion that the procedure had been inappropriately and incompetently performed.

Detective Inspector Rachel Smith, of Greater Manchester Police‘s Major Incident Team, said it was tragic that someone who attended the hospital for a diagnostic procedure to ultimately make them feel better, ended up dying at the hands of a doctor.

“The vast majority of doctors are highly qualified professionals with the skills required to provide excellent care to their patients. Mamman, on the other hand, completely disregarded the basic and in-depth knowledge expected of a medic,” Smith said.

He added that the prosecution will ensure that, going forward, no patients are put at risk of harm by Mamman.

Mamman qualified as a doctor in Nigeria in 1965 and had worked in the United Kingdom (UK) since 1991, but his true age remains a matter of controversy.

During his medical training he gave a date of birth of September 16, 1936, which meant that he was 21 years old when he began his medical training and 81 at the time of the fatal hospital incident.

But he knocked years off his age by adopting a birth date in 1941, provided to the NHS, suggesting he began his medical degree at the age of 16.

However, in about 2001 and approaching what was then the compulsory retirement age of 65, Mamman adopted an even later birth date – October 1947 – which he relied upon in an application for naturalisation as a British citizen – suggesting he started his degree course at the age of 10.

In 2004 he was found guilty of serious professional misconduct by the General Medical Council and suspended for 12 months for lying about his age.