four-year-old Justin Fisher properly and subsequently lied to a Coroner's jury about her actions.

Mrs. Diana Simons, responding to repeated questions and suggestions from the Fisher family lawyer Mr. Julian Hall, said her colleague Mrs. Pearlette Basden never told her that she was leaving to go to the bathroom.

Mrs. Simons said she expected to find Mrs. Basden watching patients in her assigned "module'' of the recovery room when she came to take over. Instead, she said, she found Justin Fisher was unwatched, pale and not breathing.

The boy suffered cardio-respiratory arrest in the recovery room at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital in January, 1991, after undergoing a supposedly routine tonsillectomy. Doctors revived him, but he was later taken off life-support after it was determined he was brain dead.

Before the inquest adjourned late last month, Mrs. Basden testified that she was interrupted by a brief telephone call, had a brief conversation with Mrs.

Simons at the medicine station, and then spent two minutes in the bathroom.

She agreed she did not make the required check of Justin's vital signs at 12:05 p.m. She said she assumed Mrs. Simons, who was to relieve her, would watch over Justin.

Mrs. Basden said she accepted some responsibility but insisted Mrs. Simons should take some blame as well. She also criticised the anaesthetist Dr. Tomos Huw Morris, saying she did not see him make frequent checks on his patients.

But when the inquest resumed yesterday, Mrs. Simons put the blame squarely on Mrs. Basden. "The patients were in Mrs. Basden's care,'' she said. "They were not officially handed over to me. Therefore, she is responsible and accountable.'' From the time she arrived on the ward to the time she saw Justin, she said, Mrs. Basden never talked with her. Mrs. Simons said she was always with one or more other nurses, who could confirm this. If Mrs. Basden had told her she was leaving the room, she would immediately have gone to watch the patients.

It was vital, she agreed, that patients unconscious from anaesthetic be watched constantly, particularly children.

In 18 years' experience, she said, "I have never known of taking over a module without the other nurse there -- except on this occasion.'' Mrs. Simons said she arrived in the recovery room before her shift began at noon. She joined other incoming nurses in hearing a general "global report'' on the patients from her immediate supervisor, the assistant unit coordinator.

Because she had been off the previous day, the supervisor spent a few seconds giving her a brief outline of the recovery room's new telephone system.

Then she went to see the patients and take over from Mrs. Basden.

The third bed she visited contained Justin Fisher, she said, and it was immediately obvious something was wrong. He was pale and did not seem to be breathing. She called to a colleague, and a doctor who was in another part of the room ran over.

Questioned by Mr. Hall, Mrs. Simons agreed it seemed Mrs. Basden was lying to minimise her role. But she also agreed when Mr. Hall pointed out that the "obverse side'' of the same coin is that Mrs. Simons could be lying to minimise her own role.

"So we are no better off at the end of the day,'' Mr. Hall said.

Mrs. Simons said a nurse would normally call the anaesthetist if there were any problems or questions during recovery.