You wouldn't think having an appendix out would be much of a drama; it causes you a lot of pain, you go to hospital, they realise what's wrong, they take it out, they... leave a scalpel in there? Hang on, that's not right. That is however, the basis of my clinical negligence case.
I'm not one of those people that complains a lot by nature, I cancelled a service with an internet provider a few years back in February and they kept charging me - it was July before I phoned them up to complain! But even my placid nature had to take a backseat when a doctor left something sharp inside me.
I was at a friend's house when my appendicitis happened: I'd had a bit of a stomach ache for a day or so, but I'd also been experimenting with new and interesting curry recipes so I wasn't too worried about it, however while sat on his sofa watching a film, the pain gradually increased until it was unbearable. It felt too low to be indigestion, and it continued getting worse and worse so my friend insisted on taking me to the hospital. I hate hospitals and have a habit of not listening to doctors, but at the time I wasn't thinking about possible clinical negligence, I was more concerned that an alien was going to burst out of my stomach any second.
In the hospital's defence, I was seen very quickly when my friend helped me through the door to A&E and they made a quick diagnosis based on me yelling when they prodded me there. I was taken to surgery and a few hours later, I was awake in the operating room. I didn't know that there had been
any clinical negligence at the time - most people think they'd notice something that shouldn't be inside them, but waking up from anaesthetic leaves you feeling strange enough that something like that just doesn't register. It was just a good thing I couldn't move too much.
It was an hour or so later when they realised their mistake - as they were doing their inventory after prepping the O.R for another surgery, they were one scalpel short. I'm still not sure how they didn't notice that they'd dropped one in me; dropping something inside someone would probably register with me, but a few minutes later I was being told not to move at all and was being wheeled to the X-ray room where they found that I did indeed have a scalpel inside me. By this point, I was starting to question the quality of the care I was receiving.
I was back under anaesthetic the next day while they took their scalpel back and the first thing I asked when I woke up was 'what's inside me this time?' The nurse giggled nervously and told me that they'd double-checked this time, but I asked to get some X-rays anyway, just to be sure.
Though this could have been much worse than it was, I still felt that I should have been compensated. This was a potentially fatal mistake and I was understandably worried, so when I left the hospital, I contacted my solicitor who put me in touch with a specialist criminal negligence lawyer and we're suing the hospital. It's not that I want to complain, it's just that I want people to know what happened to me and to hopefully help to stop this happening again, possibly with worse consequences.
Author Resource:-
Thomas Pretty is a journalist who experienced a potentially serious case of medical negligence. Find out more about clinical negligence at http://www.stewartslaw.com/
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