A WORCESTER Royal Infirmary consultant has been struck off the medical register after a botched operation led to a woman's death.

Locum Dr Willem Bijl, who was employed as a consultant urologist at Ronkswood Hospital from October 13 to October 31, left work 30 minutes after operating on Mary Love, aged 61, at Basildon Hospital in Essex. She had suffered massive bleeding and heart problems during the routine surgery.

Instead of checking that she was safe and well, Dutch-born Dr Bijl went home.

Dr Bijl, of Hackmans Road, Cock Clarks, Chelmsford, claimed that because his English was not perfect he did not understand when a fellow medic told him "she is not out of the woods yet".

The 56-year-old had denied four charges of serious professional misconduct before a General Medical Council hearing.

A spokeswoman for Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust said today he would not be returning to work. Urologists will review the notes of all patients seen by Dr Bijl to ensure they had the right treatment.

The GMC's conduct committee chairman, Professor Norman MacKay, said it was clear Dr Bijl had "seriously neglected your responsibilities to your critically-ill patient".

"It is in the public interest and is necessary for the protection of patients to strike the surgeon's name from the medical register," he added.

Mrs Love was having keyhole surgery in 1996 at Basildon Hospital in Essex to remove a kidney stone when she suffered complications and began to bleed profusely.

Anaesthetist Simon Thomson warned Dr Bijl to stop surgery but the doctor carried on because he was already making "considerable progress".

An hour later Dr Thomson again begged Dr Bijl to stop and he quickly halted the operation.

Dr Bijl then turned to his astonished team and announce "thank you everyone, goodbye".

But Mrs Love, of Grays, was suffering heart problems and fluctuating blood pressure and her condition began to deteriorate.

Dr Bijl had no mobile phone and was not at home so an on-call surgeon at the hospital performed an emergency operation later that evening.

Despite blood transfusions, Mrs Love later went into shock, which affected her heart and lungs, and she died on July 4.

Dr Bijl had admitted that during surgery he knew there was some blood loss but said he thought it was "not very significant".

Dr Bijl is considering whether to appeal.