Victim reveals how she was left with flesh-eating disease after GP did not see her face-to-face then fled to India
A woman who had a large part of her stomach removed after a negligent GP failed to see her in person spoke of her ‘rage’ at seeing the doctor had fled to India afterwards.
Oriana McDonald had found a lump on her stomach and discovered her temperature was 36.6C, so she went to see a local GP, Dr Nupur Mittal.
The 57-year-old told how Dr Mittal was stood at a sink in her room at the Waterfield Practice in Bracknell, Berkshire, for the entire ‘two minute’ consultation on July 6 2018.
Oriana told the Daily Mail: ‘I would have been in the room for two minutes, less than two minutes. She was able to diagnose me from the other end of the room, with her back to me and said ‘antibiotics’, ‘cellulitis’.
‘I was like, ‘you didn’t even touch me, take my temperature’, she recalled. ‘She was not interested in the least.’
Dr Mittal should have been supervised during the appointment, because there were previous patients who had complained, but she was not, Oriana said.
Despite taking the antibiotics, three days later Oriana had begun to feel worse and called the practice again, where she spoke to Dr Mittal on the phone.
Dr Nupur Mittal was hit with a £128,000 medical negligence bill after failing to diagnose ‘systematically unwell’ Oriana when she called the doctor’s surgery
Her partner, Ian Gale, became increasingly concerned and called for an ambulance on July 11 2018
‘She said, ‘I will give you another antibiotic, if it gets any worse you might have to phone the hospital’. She didn’t really care, she was definitely not interested at all.’
Oriana had reported the redness on her stomach had spread, she was sweating and she could not move. Her partner, Ian Gale, became increasingly concerned and called for an ambulance on July 11 2018.
Mr Gale, who is a wheelchair user, said he was unable to get to the hospital, but that he spoke to a doctor, who informed him Oriana was facing ‘life or death surgery’.
Oriana was diagnosed with a very large abscess or cyst on the abdominal wall with signs of sepsis.
Medics suspected necrotising fasciitis, known as the ‘flesh-eating disease’, which is a rare and life-threatening infection that starts in a wound. She had radical surgery which removed a large amount of tissue from her stomach.
‘I have got a scar going from my hip bone to my hip bone, from left to right to left, it took over a year to heal completely’, she said, adding she often feels conscious of the scar and it makes wearing clothes difficult.
Oriana told how she only began to think of pursuing compensation against Dr Mittal two years after the event.
‘I was just happy to be alive and coping and then I was talking with Ian and I was like, ‘I’m not happy unless she is struck off’, because I did not want it to happen to anybody else.
Since late 2024, Dr Mittal has been running the Ambala Wellness Clinic – in Ambala, a city in northern India – which boasts of her ’20 years of international experience in the UK’
‘We wanted to save anyone else from what I have gone through, the next one might have been dead.’
The couple instructed BLV Law solicitors and launched a civil claim in medical negligence against Dr Mittal, but the doctor failed to respond to any of their correspondence and did not attend court.
In Dr Mittal’s absence, they were awarded a total of £128,204.30 including damages, legal costs and interest.
The court found her liable for medical negligence as she failed to diagnose Oriana, which caused her injuries.
They only learned Dr Mittal had left the UK to go to India when they sought to secure the debt against her home in Reading and Dr Mittal’s husband, who is also a GP, responded to object.
On learning Dr Mittal had gone to India, Oriana said: ‘I did feel a bit of rage towards her.
‘If she had just diagnosed this in the first place I would have had a two-inch scar.’
Ian added: ‘She was just burying her head in the sand, she was just hiding from everything and running away from it.
‘A doctor doing their job, I know they are very busy, they haven’t always got the time, but when they do get to see a patient, they need to see that patient.’
Dr Mittal was working at the Waterfield Practice in Bracknell when, on July 6 2018, she had a face-to-face consultation with Ms McDonald, an NHS patient, who reported having found a lump on her stomach and told the doctor she had a temperature of 36.6C
Dr Mittal, who now runs a practice in India, was contacted for comment and said she was appealing the case against her.
She had interim restrictions placed on her practice by the General Medical Council since February 2016, but these were replaced with an interim suspension following an interim orders tribunal (IOT) at the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service in June 2024, preventing her from practising and treating patients.
At a further IOT hearing on November 21 last year, the interim suspension was ordered to remain in place, subject to review.
A GMC spokesman said: ‘The GMC is investigating Dr Nupur Mittal. While this is ongoing Dr Mittal is interim suspended, which means she cannot treat patients.’