John Roberts and Mahesh Goel had denied serious professional misconduct

Mahesh Goel and supervising consultant John Gethin Roberts are accused of serious professional misconduct in connection with the operation in January 2000 on Korean war veteran Graham Reeves, 69. They both deny the charges.

Having decided there is a case to answer, the panel is now considering whether their conduct does amount to serious professional misconduct.

Leighton Davies QC, for the GMC, told the disciplinary hearing on Tuesday that Mr Reeves was "failed and failed miserably in his trust and expectations" and that there was not one, but two consent forms stating clearly which kidney was to be removed.

The doctors' behaviour, he added, was a breach of fundamental and elemental duty and that was a dire failure on the part of each doctor.

"Would any ordinary and reasonably fair-minded member of the public do otherwise than gasp in disbelief at the fact that a man who was being kept alive by one normal functioning kidney had that kidney removed by a breach of fundamental duty on the part of each doctor with whom we are concerned," said Mr Davies.

'Catastrophe'

It was not a "case of a dentist pulling out a rotten tooth" but "meant life or death to Mr Reeves", he added.

The seven-day disciplinary hearing has already heard Mr Davies describe the medics' negligence as "abject, needless and inexcusable".

Both Mr Goel, who carried out the surgery, and Mr Roberts, who oversaw it, were guilty of serious professional misconduct "because of their thoughtlessness and want of due care", Mr Davies went on.

"It was a situation of catastrophe, as not only Mr Roberts and Goel must have realised, but also everyone else who had been involved in that operation."

Later that week, Mr Roberts told the hearing how he had collected x-rays but had read them the wrong way round and noted on the theatre operating list that Mr Reeves was to undergo a left nephrectomy - a mistake.

Graham Reeves died five weeks after his wrong kidney was removed

Usually, he said, both doctors would have studied the x-rays together "but for some reason we did not follow our usual practice".

He realised something had gone wrong when, two hours after the surgery, the consultant anaesthetist told him that 69-year-old Mr Reeves had not produced any urine.

"My heart sank and I began to realise we had removed the wrong kidney," Mr Roberts told the tribunal.

Rescue

"I reviewed the x-rays again and came to the conclusion, I could not understand why, that I previously decided the left (kidney) was correct."

Mr Roberts then tried to "rescue" the organ so that it could be replanted but it had already been put in sterilising agent and that was not possible.

An attempt to get Mr Reeves' diseased remaining kidney to work was also doomed.

The pensioner was transferred to Morriston Hospital in Swansea but died on 1 March 2000.

Both doctors were cleared of manslaughter at Cardiff Crown Court in June 2002.

The prosecution's case collapsed after an expert pathologist told the court he could not be sure Mr Reeves died as a result of the mistake.