Beauty therapist Louise Harvey had two treatments at same time 'because it was cheaper'
Louise Harvey's mother says her family had a history of blood clots and she was sent home without blood thinners.
Monday 28 October 2019 17:08, UK
A beauty therapist who died following breast enlargement and tummy tuck surgery was advised she could have both procedures "at the same time as it would be cheaper", her mother told an inquest.
After undergoing the operations in London on 17 June 2018, Louise Harvey, 36, of Norwich, died on 5 July 2018
The mother-of-three had suffered a bilateral pulmonary embolism, a blood clot that occurs in the lungs, a post-mortem recorded.
Breast augmentation and abdominoplasty - the medical term for a tummy tuck - were recorded as secondary causes.
Miss Harvey's mother Linda, 53, said her family had a history of blood clots and her daughter was sent home without blood thinners, the inquest in Norwich heard.
Norfolk's area coroner Yvonne Blake said in a statement that Linda Harvey wanted a tummy tuck as "she felt she had some loose skin around her belly following the birth of her youngest son".
She said Miss Harvey spoke with someone at the clinic and "they suggested having (the two operations) at the same time as it would be cheaper".
The three-hour surgery was completed on 17 June 2018 and she took a taxi home to Norwich on 19 June 2018.
Miss Harvey's mother said her daughter was not given blood thinners to take home, adding that "if Louise had been advised about this I would have expected her to tell me".
When she attended an outpatient appointment in Norwich on 26 June Miss Harvey was advised that the "stitches were OK" and "she was healing well", her mother said.
Her mother said an ambulance had to be called and she was taken to hospital on 3 July after she collapsed and started fitting.
"Louise's organs were giving up," her mother said.
"She had blood clots in her heart and lungs."
On 4 July Miss Harvey was able to talk, asked where she was and if her sons could visit her, according to her mother.
She died the following day.
Her mother said that on July 12 2018 "Transform called to offer their condolences but couldn't offer any explanation as to what happened".
Consultant plastic surgeon Manish Sinha, who performed the operations on Miss Harvey at Transform Riverside Hospital, was questioned by Ms Blake who asked: "When you saw Louise and you discussed the risks of any surgery, were you aware of her family history, her sister having had a clot and her grandmother?"
"No ma'am, I was not," he said.
He told the inquest it was not his usual practice to read a pre-assessment form completed by a patient with a nurse, in which Miss Harvey's family history of DVT (deep vein thrombosis) was recorded, "unless specific things have been flagged up to me".