A FORMER Burnley surgeon removed a patient's only healthy kidney in a blunder "appalling" in its negligence, a medical tribunal heard.

The General Medical Council's (GMC) professional conduct committee was told of the tragedy yesterday involving a Korean war veteran Graham Reeves, 70.

Mr Reeves died a month after the operation at Prince Philip Hospital, in Wales, on January 24, 2000.

The hearing was initially delayed after registrar Mahesh Goel, 41, who previously lived in Burnley, asked for it to proceed in his absence as he had pressing matters to attend in India.

It also came after Mr Goel and consultant urologist, John Gethin Roberts, 61, of Swansea, who oversaw the operation, walked free from Cardiff Crown Court in June 2002 where they were accused of manslaughter.

But yesterday Mr Roberts admitted unprofessional and incompetent conduct.

Mr Leighton Davies QC, for the GMC, said: "There was a compound of negligence by each of them which was, and should have been, easily avoidable and avoided.

"When properly and objectively assessed, that negligence on the part of each of them deserves to be, and in the public interest ought to be, morally condemned as amounting to gross negligence.

"Not just negligence - gross negligence. It was a situation of catastrophe."

Mr Davies said Mr Reeves' right kidney had been chronically diseased and had not been functioning for years. The removal of the left kidney, he said, was a drastic surgical error.

He said: "In fact, it was described by Mr Roberts himself in the immediate aftermath as an error which was appalling."

Mr Reeves was placed on dialysis but his condition continued to deteriorate with blood pressure and cardiac problems.

He developed septicaemia which doctors concluded was caused by his diseased remaining kidney. On February 17, it was surgically removed but Mr Reeves died on February 27 after developing pneumonia.

The hearing continues.