TWO bungling surgeons who removed a patient's only working kidney failed in their professional duties, a GMC panel has ruled.

The pair, including former Burnley General Hospital locum Mahesh Goel, were yesterday found guilty of a catalogue of mistakes in a disastrous operation at a South Wales hospital in January, 2000.

Registrar Goel and consultant urologist John Gethin Roberts made the 'catastrophic error' at the Prince Philip Hospital, Llanelli, while operating on 69-year-old Graham Reeves.

Mr Reeves, from Carmarthenshire, died five weeks after his healthy left kidney was cut out by 41-year-old Goel.

Roberts, 61, had supervised the disastrous procedure.

The General Medical Council professional conduct committee found a series of allegations against both doctors proved.

Roberts, from Swansea, and Goel, who now lives in India and did not attend the London hearing, continue to deny serious professional misconduct - a charge that could see them struck off over their incompetence.

The panel will hear mitigation before considering if the pair have brought the profession into dispute and decide any sanction.

Leighton Davies, prosecuting for the GMC, said the operation was "a matter of life and death for Mr Reeves" and the pair should be struck off.

He said: "There was no excuse on the part of Mr Roberts or Mr Goel for not getting it spot on. Their basic breach of their fundamental duty to scrutinise the patient notes, which wasn't complex and would have taken a few minutes to discharge, would have made all the difference."

Had they checked, he added "We would not be here before you. The notes were readily available and easily read. This was a major, life threatening operation.

"Neither of them could have made a worse mistake."

(Proceeding