A PATIENT whose bowel operation was bungled told his daughter beforehand that he thought the surgeon had been drinking, a fatal accident inquiry heard yesterday.

Retired tanker driver William Callachan, 69, of Auldhill, Bridgend, West Lothian, had been due to have a colostomy, but the wrong end of his colon was sealed off.

The inquiry was told that the rectal end was selected instead of the active end coming down from the stomach and over the next six days Mr Callachan's condition deteriorated.

He required a second operation to reverse it but died four weeks later.

His daughter Wilma told the inquiry that she spoke to her father just before he had the first operation at St John's Hospital, Livingston. She asked him about the consultant, Mr Gerald Davies, who was about to perform it and he replied ''He's a funny big bugger. I think he is half-pissed.''

Miss Callachan, 37, a customer services manager, of Broomhall Crescent, Edinburgh, said her father, who had suffered from bladder cancer, underwent the first operation on December 3, 1994, and the second in the early hours of December 9.

She said the family was then told that ''a serious mistake'' had been made which had exacerbated her father's con-dition and that Mr Davies had been suspended pending a hospital investigation.

When she told her father this, he repeated his remark about Mr Davies. As his con-dition deteriorated, Miss Call-achan said the family made arrangements to look after her father at home but he died before these were completed.

Miss Callachan said there were a number of questions which the hospital trust had failed to answer. Instead, the family learned of developments from newspapers.

''We want to know what went wrong in the first operation and why it went wrong, and also why the investigation was dropped,'' she said.

Mr Ian Wallace, 56, con-sultant general surgeon and director of clinical services at the hospital, told the inquiry that he knew Mr Callachan and had treated him for bladder cancer since 1992.

However, when he was admitted for treatment of a bowel obstruction, the oper-ations were carried out by Mr Davies.

Mr Wallace said his concerns were raised after the first operation for which there were no full notes available from the operating surgeon. He asked for Mr Davies to be invited to review Mr Callachan's case and the second operation was carried out at 11.30pm.

Mr Wallace said earlier that day he had noticed a strong smell of alcohol on Mr Davies's breath, who had also failed to attend an audit meeting, and he had discussed this with a colleague.

He said Mr Davies had claimed in his notes from the second operation that the mistake in the first had been due to a twist in the colon.

However, he said surgeons were aware that this could occur and even senior staff should take a second opinion if in any doubt and always put patient safety first.

In the wake of what had happened, he had serious concerns about Mr Davies's com-petence and also about his conduct. Mr Wallace said he had spoken and written to Mr Davies after previous reports from nursing staff that they had smelled alcohol on his breath and he had kept a closer eye on his colleague.

''He denied that there was any alcohol or health problem.

''The Callachan case was the first time I had seen something personally which I felt I had to intervene about,'' Mr Wallace said.

He said there were diffi-culties in acting on previous reports because they were simply about the smell of alcohol than him being under the influence of alcohol.

''I have to say that throughout my professional career I have come across colleagues who have smelled of alcohol perhaps on a Saturday morning, but in no way have been disabled by its effects,'' Mr Wallace added.

Given the events of the two operations, however, he said he had no option but to take action. He said he offered Mr Davies the alternative of sick leave or suspension pending an inquiry and he chose the latter.

''With regard to the specific concern about the (first) oper-ation, he said to me if he had to do it again, he would not do anything differently,'' Mr Wallace said.

The inquiry, at Livingston Sheriff Court before Sheriff Principal Gordon Nicholson QC, continues. It is also con-sidering the death of another patient, Ann Halloran, of Fells Rigg, Livingston, at the hospital in 1994.