A care assistant who suffered a series of serious medical issues died of natural causes, an inquest found, but her family said they felt let down.
Stoke-on-Trent coroner’s court heard Elyse Foster, 22, from Cheddleton in Staffordshire, had been diagnosed with an auto-immune disease and then with cancer.
She was admitted to the Royal Stoke Hospital for surgery in October 2024 but suffered a cardiac arrest after the operation. This led to a brain injury which she did not recover from.
The coroner recorded a verdict of death by natural causes, contributed to by a necessary surgical procedure, but her family said they felt the hospital had let their caring daughter down.
The inquest heard the care assistant had been diagnosed with auto immune condition myasthenia gravis, a rare condition which causes muscle weakness, in March 2024.
A CT scan the following month found a large mass which was confirmed to be a thymoma – a gland cancer which had spread to her lungs.
After completing a course of chemotherapy surgery had been planned for 30 August at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital, but this was postponed because she wanted to go on holiday.
The surgery, to remove as much as the tumour as possible, was instead performed at the Royal Stoke Hospital on 22 September.
The inquest heard after the surgery her condition never really stabilised and she suffered a cardiac arrest on 7 October. Her life support machine was switched off on 17 October.
The inquest heard from three doctors and a pathologist who all said they could not be certain of cause of the cardiac arrest.
Speaking after the inquest, her mother, Kirstie Tittensor, said: “She was fun-loving, she liked her friends and her family, she was caring, she worked in a care home, she was just loved by everybody.”
She also described her daughter as positive and hard working and said: “We feel as a family that the Royal Stoke massively let Elyse down.”
The family have said they are considering legal action against the hospital trust and grandmother, Joy Tittensor, said: “We don’t want this to happen to anybody else, we don’t want anybody to go through what we’ve been through.”
The University Hospitals of North Midlands had previously sent condolences to the family and have been approached for a response by the BBC.
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