A mother who wanted to lose weight for the sake of her son died from complications days after undergoing gastric bypass surgery.

Suzanne Murphy, 29, visited a surgeon in desperation because she felt her obesity was stopping her from doing the things she wanted to with her five-year-old son Jacob.

After a 16-month wait, she went to hospital in October 2006 for a stomach-stapling operation, which reduces the amount a person can eat and how much food is absorbed.

She suffered a massive adverse reaction and died from multiple organ failure four days later.

Ms Murphy, who weighed more than 19st (120kg), had contracted MRSA but may have been genetically predisposed to have an aggressive response to surgery that her body could not fight, an inquest in Huddersfield heard yesterday.

In a note that she left under her son’s pillow before the operation, she wrote: “To my beautiful baby boy. All you have to know is, mummy is doing this for you and me.

“Mummy has carried a lot of weight in my head and heart and body for as long as I can remember - I don’t want my baggage to become a weight you have to carry, son.

“You know mummy is strong and would do anything for you - get the stars from the sky if I could - but with this problem, darling, mummy can’t do it alone.

“I need a helping hand. So when the nice doctors said they could help me with getting the weight off the outside, mummy thought very long and carefully and finally said, ‘Yes please’.”Add-ing that she wanted to give them both a “fresh start” she wrote: “You are my oxygen. I love you so much I want you to have the best and happiest life I can give.”

Ms Murphy, of Lightcliffe, Halifax, West Yorkshire, was put on the list for bypass surgery after a consultation with a surgeon, Brian Dobbins, in June 2005 and undergoing tests showing that she was no more at risk than anyone else.

She was admitted to Huddersfield Royal Infirmary on October 30, 2006, before having the operation, which was judged to have been successful.

The next day Dr Dobbins noticed her pulse rate had quickened and her blood count had dropped.

She was given a transfusion but this did not have the desired effect. She was taken to theatre for an exploratory operation 24 hours after her surgery but doctors could find little wrong except for a small leak from the operation wound, which was considered normal.

Dr Dobbins, who has performed about 50 bypass operations, said: “I personally expected Suzanne to turn a corner at this point. I felt there was nothing untoward.”

Doctors believed she was having a septic reaction but a further operation did not find any source of her continuing illness. Checks for MRSA, carried out on November 4, 2006, came back positive after she died that day.

A microbiologist, Dr David Birken-head, said: “I am not convinced MRSA was the cause of her septic picture, more likely it was one of the other organisms in the body.”

Dr Dominic Bell, who prepared an independent report for the hearing, said it was more likely that she was a luckless victim of systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) meaning that she was among a tiny percentage of the population who would have a disastrous response to surgery. Dr Bell added: “It is my view that a combination of factors triggered an inflammatory response, amplified by her genetic condition and contributed to by her morbid obesity.”

Recording a verdict of misadventure, Paul Marks, the coroner, said: “MRSA was not relevant, on the balance of probabilities, to her death.”

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