THE grieving brother of a woman who died after a routine knee operation has spoken of his outrage as he searches for the truth about her death.

Antonietta Mansi is one of two patients who died after elective surgery at the Surgicentre on the Lister Hospital site in Stevenage.

As the Comet revealed last month, the two deaths led to the Surgicentre being stopped from receiving any new referrals for knee and hip operations.

Miss Mansi’s brother Michael said his sister was a healthy 87-year-old who cared for herself, who cooked and cleaned, was an avid reader and gardener and apart from having an arthritic knee would enjoy life to the full.

The Hitchin woman had been admitted to the privately-run centre in May and the operation was carried out under epidural the same day.

Mr Mansi, of Brook View, Hitchin said: “That evening she rang me from her mobile, we had a long conversation and she asked me to bring her library book in, she knew what was going on.”

But when Mr Mansi rang to arrange collecting his sister a few days later, he was told she had been transferred to the Lister’s high dependency unit after her condition had deteriorated.

Mr Mansi is now demanding answers after her cause of death was given as bronchopneumonia.

He said: “If they had monitored her, she would still be here today.

“It wasn’t the surgery, it was the aftercare.

“I want some answers and I don’t want to see anybody else go in that place and come out in a coffin.

“I’m very angry.”

The Surgicentre’s medical director Mark O’Flynn had written to Mr Mansi to present the facts surrounding Miss Mansi’s death.

In the letter, seen by the Comet, Mr O’Flynn said the second person died of natural causes eight days after surgery on a joint.