BBC Website 31 August 2011
A teenager was left paralysed from the waist down after a spinal anaesthetic was wrongly left in place for too long, a hospital has admitted.
A pain-killing epidural infusion was not removed for two days after gallstone surgery, permanently damaging her spinal cord. A day after the surgery the patient complained of leg numbness. The following day an MRI scan revealed that the anaesthetic had entered the spinal cord and damaged the membranes, paralysing her from the waist down.
The patient's solicitor called for lessons to be learned. He hoped the staff responsible had already been retrained so that similar "tragedies" could be avoided.
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1 comment:
How awful! This is a sad reminder of how much trust we place in doctors and how they are by no means infallible. I hope she found herself some good medical lawyers to take care of things.
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