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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The inquest heard the care assistant had been diagnosed with auto immune condition myasthenia gravis<\/a>, a rare condition which causes muscle weakness, in March 2024.<\/p>\n A CT scan the following month found a large mass which was confirmed to be a thymoma \u2013 a gland cancer<\/a> which had spread to her lungs.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The surgery, to remove as much as the tumour as possible, was instead performed at the Royal Stoke Hospital on 22 September.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The inquest heard from three doctors and a pathologist who all said they could not be certain of cause of the cardiac arrest.<\/p>\n 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.”<\/p>\n 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.”<\/p>\n 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.”<\/p>\n The University Hospitals of North Midlands had previously sent condolences to the family and have been approached for a response by the BBC.<\/p>\n Follow BBC Stoke & Staffordshire on BBC Sounds<\/a>, Facebook<\/a>, X<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>. <\/p>\n Related internet links