Background to Clinical Negligence Claim
At 44 years old LR underwent a laparoscopic (key hole) hysterectomy because of an abnormal cervical smear test result. Soon after the operation, which was performed in a private hospital, she complained of pain when passing urine and had to be catheterised. She was discharged home 2 days after the operation but had to be re-admitted the following day and re-catheterised because of retention of urine. She was discharged again 2 days later but continued to suffer from frequency together with pain on passing urine. Sixteen days after the operation she began to leak urine from her vagina uncontrollably. LR was once again admitted to hospital where it was discovered that she had a hole in her left ureter through which urine was leaking.
An attempt was made to block the hole by the insertion of a stent (small tube) via cystoscopy but this failed and 9 days later the damaged ureter was reimplanted into the bladder via an abdominal incision. Unfortunately it became blocked and she required a second reimplantation. Even after these 3 operations she continued to complain of pain in the area of her left kidney and lower abdomen together with urinary frequency that interrupted her sleep. She also had pain in her abdominal scar and significant fatigue. LR alleged that during the course of the operation the surgeon had either caught the ureter with a stitch or had damaged it when using diathermy equipment to control bleeding. Either way she alleged the surgeon had failed to carefully check for the location of the ureters during the course of the operation.
The case was strongly defended but following a meeting of gynaecological experts, the Defendant agreed that he would pay the Claimant damages to be assessed at a later date. The operation, somewhat unusually, had been videoed and the 2 expert witnesses could not establish that the surgeon had carefully identified the ureters and excluded them from the operative field when performing the diathermy.
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