I WAS SACKED FOR GIVING MUM WRONG DRUG; Darren doc admits past blunder.

THE anaesthetist involved in the death of a schoolboy in a dentist's chair was sacked from a previous job after he temporarily paralysed a hospital patient by giving her the wrong drug.

John Evans-Appiah yesterday admitted committing the blunder while he worked at Falkirk Royal Infirmary in 1993.

He was supposed to give the patient, who had just given birth by Caesarean section, a drug to contract her uterus.

Instead he gave her a muscle relaxant, which caused total paralysis and left the woman, Jane Smith, awake but unable to speak.

Evans-Appiah said he had picked up the wrong drug from a trolley and that the label had not been clear.

He said the patient subsequently recovered.

Evans-Appiah's mistake was revealed on the third day of a fatal accident inquiry into the death of Darren Denholm, 10, of Armadale, West Lothian.

Darren had gone to the Peffermill Dental Centre in Craigmillar, Edinburgh, for a routine tooth extraction.

He had a heart attack and died after a general and local anaesthetic administered at the clinic reacted with each other.

This week Evans-Appiah told the inquiry at Edinburgh Sheriff Court that he did not know Darren had been given a local anaesthetic.

But yesterday dentist Hallgier Pedersen said he had administered the local anaesthetic under instruction from Evans-Appiah.

Mr Pedersen said: "I would never proceed with treatment without the anaesthetist giving the go-ahead - never ever."

Ghana-born Evans-Appiah, 57, who has held 42 jobs since coming to the UK in 1973, said he wanted to meet Darren's parents after the tragedy last October.

He said: "I wanted to tell them I was sorry. I wanted to join them in their grief."

The inquiry continues.