Family of ‘devoted father’ receive £2.1m over his death in hospital

THE FAMILY of a banker who died following a blunder at a private hospital are set to receive a £2.1m damages payout.

Robert Entenman suffered “devastating” brain damage and died at London Bridge Hospital in May 2015 after his breathing tube became blocked when a piece of equipment was turned off.

After a coroner ruled in 2016 that the circumstances leading to the 57-year-old’s death amounted to neglect, his widow Athina Kyriakidou sued hospital operator HCA International Ltd.

HCA admitted liability in November 2018 and agreed a financial settlement in September.

During a brief hearing at London’s

High Court yesterday to approve the settlement, Mr Justice Martin Spencer said he would have liked to have met Mr Entenman, who was originally from America and worked for UniCredit Bank in London.

He told the court: “No judge reading these papers could fail to be moved by what appears in relation to Mr Entenman. Perhaps the greatest compliment I can give him, having read all that I have about him, is that he is a man I would very much like to have met.

“He sounds as if he was a wholly admirable man, a renaissance man, who had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the world and everything about it, who was dedicated to his job but, more than anything, dedicated to his family. He was a devoted father to his two children, and clearly his death has been devastating for them, as well as of course for Mrs Kyriakidou and his extended family.”

Mr Justice Spencer hoped the settlement will enable the family to move on, as far as they can, and wished them the best for the future.

In a statement issued afterwards, Mrs Kyriakidou said the only possible positive impact would be if the hospital actually learnt from their mistakes and ensured nothing similar ever happened again.

Paul McNeil, from Fieldfisher, who represented the family, said: “Robert Entenman’s wife and two children have had to pick up the pieces following his death as best they can.

“This is not something a family should have to do when someone goes into hospital for relatively straightforward surgery.”