An in­ves­ti­ga­tion is un­der­way in­to the death of re­tired po­lice in­spec­tor Karen Bruce, who passed away fol­low­ing a sus­pect­ed sur­gi­cal mishap at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal on Tues­day.

Bruce, a re­spect­ed of­fi­cer who served in the Po­lice Com­plaints Di­vi­sion and was last post­ed to the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion be­fore her re­tire­ment, was known for her fair­ness and pro­fes­sion­al­ism dur­ing her decades-long ser­vice.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, Bruce was ad­mit­ted to hos­pi­tal last week­end for a re­nal nephrec­to­my—a sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dure to re­move all or part of a kid­ney. The surgery was ini­tial­ly deemed suc­cess­ful and was com­plet­ed by a urol­o­gist. Gen­er­al sur­geons were then called in to as­sist and close the sur­gi­cal site, and Bruce was trans­ferred to a ward for re­cov­ery.

How­ev­er, with­in days, she be­gan ex­pe­ri­enc­ing com­pli­ca­tions. When med­ical staff con­duct­ed scans and eval­u­a­tions, they dis­cov­ered that a hole had been ac­ci­den­tal­ly cre­at­ed in her colon dur­ing surgery. This per­fo­ra­tion al­lowed fae­cal mat­ter to leak in­to her ab­dom­i­nal cav­i­ty—an ex­treme­ly dan­ger­ous con­di­tion known to cause wide­spread in­fec­tion.

Bruce was rushed back in­to the op­er­at­ing the­atre for an emer­gency la­paro­to­my—a pro­ce­dure to open the ab­domen, clean the in­fect­ed area, and re­pair the dam­age. Sur­geons re­moved part of her in­tes­tine in an at­tempt to con­tain the in­fec­tion, but by then she had al­ready be­gun to suf­fer from sep­sis. De­spite their ef­forts, Bruce’s con­di­tion de­te­ri­o­rat­ed rapid­ly and she passed away.

The South-West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) is­sued a state­ment ac­knowl­edg­ing me­dia re­ports of the in­ci­dent.

“Whilst the Au­thor­i­ty com­mis­er­ates with the rel­a­tives and loved ones of the de­ceased client, a for­mal in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been launched to bet­ter un­der­stand the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the mat­ter,” the state­ment said.

The SWRHA added that it “will con­tin­ue to be in con­tact with the next of kin to ex­change ap­pro­pri­ate and rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion.”

The out­come of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is ex­pect­ed to de­ter­mine whether any pro­ce­dur­al laps­es oc­curred dur­ing Bruce’s care and what mea­sures, if any, will be tak­en to ad­dress them.