86-year-old man with acute gangrenous perforated cholecystitis underwent laparoscopic cholecystectomy on 2 October 2015, forty-two hours after admission. Severe bleeding from hepatic arterial branches required conversion to open surgery, CPR, and massive transfusion. Myocardial infarction occurred intraoperatively in a patient with underlying coronary artery disease and was unresuscitable. While the delay between admission and surgery (outside 72-hour guideline window) raised family concerns, the coroner found the delay was reasonable given the competing surgical demands and Mr Cleeman's stable condition. HMIT concluded that earlier surgery may have had a different outcome but this could not be determined with certainty. The core clinical lesson is that perforated cholecystitis in an elderly patient with cardiac comorbidities carries high perioperative risk; however, the surgical response to major intraoperative bleeding was appropriate.
AI-generated summary and tagging — may contain inaccuracies; refer to original finding for legal purposes. Report an inaccuracy.
laparoscopic cholecystectomyconversion to open cholecystectomycardio-pulmonary resuscitationblood transfusionmassive transfusion protocol
Contributing factors
Acute gangrenous perforated cholecystitis
Bleeding from hepatic artery during surgery
Underlying coronary artery disease
Myocardial infarction intraoperatively
High surgical risk due to significant inflammation
Delay in surgery (42 hours between admission and operation, with second 24-hour delay due to surgical team unavailability)
Coroner's recommendations
Ballarat Health Services should review emergency surgery capacity with a view to ensuring patient access to clinically-indicated emergency surgery is optimized even in the setting of multiple competing demands on surgical resources
BHS should address not only theatre availability but also ensure adequate surgical team capacity to perform emergency surgery in a timely manner
This page reproduces or summarises information from publicly available findings published by Australian coroners' courts. Coronial is an independent educational resource and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of any coronial court or government body.
Content may be incomplete, reformatted, or summarised. Some material may have been redacted or restricted by court order or privacy requirements. Always refer to the original court publication for the authoritative record.
Copyright in original materials remains with the relevant government jurisdiction. AI-generated summaries and tagging are for educational purposes only, may contain inaccuracies, and must not be treated as legal documents. We welcome feedback for correction — report an inaccuracy here.