“THERE was nothing I could have done or would do, that was different.”

Those were the words of Caner Salih, the surgeon who operated on four babies who later died at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital.

Mr Salih was speaking yesterday at the inquest into the death of Nathalie Lo who died aged 23 days following an operation for a heart condition.

Children’s heart operations were suspended at the unit in March after three other babies also died.

Yesterday, an inquest into the cause of her death heard the baby died in the early hours of December 22 after Mr Salih operated on her.

The surgeon said: “There were no questions in my mind, not just in Nathalie’s case, but in any of the procedures I have done, that any of the procedures I have done were compromised by not having the right equipment.

“I would simply not have done it.”

Nathalie was born ‘blue’, meaning blood was not being pumped properly to her lungs in order for it to be oxygenated.

The problem needed to be treated with a ‘shunt’ – a tube-like device, which would be placed in her heart to allow blood to flow to her lungs.

But the baby was thought to be suffering from infections, meaning the surgery could not take place and, over the next two weeks, she was given two courses of antibiotics.

Mr Salih told coroner Nicholas Gardiner the operation had also been postponed once due to lack of equipment.

But on the day of the operation everything was in place, otherwise he would “simply not have done it”.

After surgery, Nathalie was returned to intensive care in a stable condition, but the surgeon was called in a few hours later to find her in difficulty.

Mr Salih said the only option was to take Nathalie back into the operating theatre to check the shunt was not blocked and to rule out other problems.

But an hour later her condition deteriorated rapidly and, despite Mr Salih’s attempts to massage her heart by hand, Nathalie died.

Post-mortem checks revealed a twisted gut and possible signs of infection.

Describing himself as his own ‘biggest critic’, Mr Salih told the inquest, which was attended by Nathalie’s parents Aida Lo, 29, and Zelia Li, 30, said: “Going back through the data with a lot of detail and a lot of attention, we do not think there is anything we could have seen before the procedure that would have allowed us to predict the way Nathalie’s heart function performed afterwards.

“There is nothing I could have done or would do, that is different.”

The court was told the operation carried out on Nathalie has a 95 per cent success rate.

Coroner Nicholas Gardiner, who recorded a narrative verdict, said sadly somebody “always has to be in the five per cent”.

He added: “I have no reason to think she died because of the treatment she received, but rather that she died despite it.

“It would be possible for me to record a verdict that she died of natural causes, but I think it is necessary to expand on that to a rather greater extent.

“She was born with a congenital abnormality of the heart and possibly other less significant abnormalities.

“Appropriate surgery was undertaken but, for reasons that are not entirely understood, this did not produce the desired effect.”

Speaking after the inquest, Gail Rossiter, spokesman for Nathalie’s parents, said: “As a family we would like to thank everyone at the hospital who was involved in Nathalie’s care.

“We wanted to know why she died and although it’s still not entirely clear we have had a full explanation.”