DOCTORS treating a young York boy who suffered serious heart problems were caught in a "dilemma" about whether to operate on him.

An inquest heard that when eight year old Richard Woollard died of heart failure, he had been "suspended" from a waiting list for life-saving surgery.

But consultant Dr David Dickinson said that was because experts were waiting for the right time to operate and did not want him staying on a waiting list unnecessarily.

He said that on the one hand surgery would correct an abnormal valve in Richard's heart.

But on the other, he said that there was a "significant risk" of undertaking an operation on his small, developing organ.

"There was a dilemma of not operating too soon against not operating soon enough" he said.

Richard, whose parents, John and Fiona, live in Lingfield Crescent, York, died in December 2000 after a lifetime of heart trouble.

He underwent surgery to correct a congenital heart defect in the first week of his life and was later diagnosed with the rare Di George syndrome.

Dr Dickinson said: "There are obviously difficult choices to be made in trying to get the balance right between waiting and getting the timing correct - it's really very difficult.

"There's no single test I can do which tells us the answer to this question. The main risk is a deteriorating function of the heart muscle which is inevitable. It's just a case of trying to pick the right time to proceed."

The inquest heard that doctors did not place Richard on an urgent list of patients needing surgery.

Dr Dickinson said: "If you have some stability for a number of years there's no reason to suspect a sudden deterioration."

The inquest continues.

Updated: 10:18 Thursday, March 13, 2003