Sally, 51

JMW has secured £11,000 compensation for a woman after negligent thumb surgery by medical professionals resulted in further revision surgeries.

Negligent surgery to Sally’s right thumb meant she had to undergo revision surgery and suffered additional pain and poor use of her thumb in the period in between. Sally’s case was taken on by Katie Nolan, one of the specialist solicitors at JMW, and she was awarded £11,000 in compensation.

Thumb pain

When the pain in Sally’s right thumb had not subsided after several months she went to see her GP. The pain was constant at the base of her thumb and got worse when she was using her hand and was accompanied by intermittent periods of numbness. The GP referred Sally to an orthopaedic doctor.

The doctor arranged for Sally to have a steroid and local anaesthetic injection which relieved the pain for two weeks. However, it came back and as well as making her working life difficult Sally struggled with daily living. After discussions with the doctor, it was decided that Sally would undergo a replacement of her thumb joint.

Negligent surgery

A few months later Sally underwent the operation which was done by a different orthopaedic surgeon than the one she had her consultation with. Almost two weeks later Sally had a follow-up appointment with a nurse and she explained to him that her thumb was extremely painful and was in fact worse than it had been prior to the operation.

Several weeks later Sally had her plaster cast removed and X-Rays were taken. These were reported by the surgeon to show that the implanted joint was in a satisfactory position, which was not the case. Sally was still in severe pain and her thumb joint had seen no improvement at all. This continued for several months and the pain she experienced steadily increased while her use of the thumb was also very limited.

Eventually, after numerous orthopaedic appointments Sally underwent revision surgery which alleviated all of Sally’s pain and she went on to make a full recovery.

Successful claim

Suspecting that something had gone badly wrong with the original surgery Sally contacted the specialist solicitors for advice. Her case was taken on by Katie Nolan who investigated and found several errors had been made which had caused Sally’s suffering. Katie was successful in securing Sally a compensation settlement of £11,000 for the months of pain she had endured.