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Joan Board

Age: 78

Sex: female

Date: 9 Jan 2006

Place: Enfield

Joan Board died after collapsing at her home on 2 December 2005 from heart disease.

Her doctor was later arrested on suspicion of her manslaughter, malfeasance and perverting the course of justice, and bailed. The doctor was arrested after paramedics that had come out to attend to her after she collapsed at 2.40pm raised concerns when they found that the doctor had failed to resuscitate her as she lay dying.

Joan Board had collapsed during a house visit by the doctor. When the paramedics arrived they carried out cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Joan Board died soon after in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

The ambulance personnel said that if CPR had been carried out earlier she would have stood a much better chance of survival.

It was also heard at her inquest that her family had raised concerns about her treatment.

It was said that historically, CPR was not a compulsory component of a doctor's training and that there was no formal requirement for a doctor to be fully trained in resuscitation techniques. However, the British Medical Association had previously stated that they liked all doctors to keep their training up to date. The doctor was 70 years old and had registered as a doctor in September 1970 having got her qualifications in 1959 from the Vikram University in Madhya Pradesh, India.

The British Medical Association later said that hospital dramas on television were giving the public an unrealistic expectation of a doctor’s ability to resuscitate a patient. At a conference one of their member's said that 'fewer than half of patients whose hearts stopped in hospital survived the initial event and of those only a third went home. He added that when the public tried the kiss of life the survival rate was about 2 per cent'.

It is not known whether the manslaughter charge was followed through and there are no known charges, trials or trial results.


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