The inquest into the death of David Gray, who died in February last year after a visiting locum GP, Dr Ubani, gave him a lethal overdose of Diamorphine, attracted national publicity. William Morris, the coroner for North and East Cambridgeshire, sat without a jury and did not mince words in his summing up last month.
According to expert evidence given to the coroner, Dr Ubani had administered a dose ten times higher than the appropriate dose for Mr Gray’s condition (renal colic). The coroner said: “It is clear to me that Dr Ubani in his dealings with patients over that fateful weekend was incompetent. And he went on: “How was it that a doctor, who did not obtain his qualifications in this country, whose first language was not English, who was probably fatigued, who had received a less than adequate induction...came to be treating patients in Cambridgeshire, and treating at least some of them incompetently? How was this lamentable situation reached?”
He found that Dr Ubani, who had flown into England for the first time only the day before, committed a “gross error.” He