OPERATION SEQUEL

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 November 1938, Page 7

OPERATION SEQUEL

PATIENT SUES HOSPITAL BD

GAUZE LEFT IN BODY

[pee pbess association.]

AUCKLAND, November 14. A claim for damages against the Auckland Hospital Board by a patient who had undergone an opera- - tion in the Auckland Hospital was heard by Mr Justice Callan and a jury, in the Supreme Court- Plaintiff was Mrs Molly Bailey, of Point Chevalier, aged 35, who was a patient in the Auckland Hospital from July 27 to August 10. She was operated on by members of the board’s staff on July 28, and she alleged that they had left in her a length or piece of surgical gauze, or a “foreign body,” resulting in great pain, loss, damage and injury. The negligence alleged was that the board had failed to remove the gauze from the plaintiff before discharging her or to notify her of its presence. It was claimed that the plaintiff’s general health had been impaired and would continue to be impaired. She claimed £36/15/special damages, for extra medical attention necessary, and £750 general damages. The Hospital Board admitted that the plaintiff had been a patient, and had been operated on in the hospital, but denied all the other allegations.

Mr Sullivan, for the plaintiff, said the plaintiff, was the mother of two children, aged 14 and 13. During the course of the operation a gauze packing was inserted by one of those attending her. Normally, this should have been removed before she left hospital; but it was not, and no one responsible was told about it. It was an abdominal operation. Counsel said the shock of discovering this gauze (which he produced) about three feet long, had seriously affeqted the plaintiff’s nerves. The negligence charged against the Hospital Board, Mr Sullivan continued, was not so much in putting the gauze

in, as in not taking it out. Doctors who had attended the plaintiff would say that she would suffer from the effects of the shock she had received for six,--nine, or 12 months. She was the wife of an ordinary working man, and was now unable to do her customary work about the house. In reply to the first claim made on the board, Mr Sullivan said, the board wrote that although by, inadvertence the gauze was not removed, it was advised that the patient had suffered no injury. Mr Sullivan said the board admitted responsibility, but an agreement could not be reached as to the extent of that liability. That was the question that was being referred to the jury.

MEDICAL EVIDENCE. Dr. J. W. Craven, Superintendent of the Auckland Hospital, produced the hospital records of the case. To Mr Meredith, counsel for the board, witness said the file indicated that Mrs Bailey had been in hospital on many occasions. It was admitted that she left the hospital with antiseptic gauze still in her. That was not the usual practice. Plaintiff said she had suffered much pain in hospital, and after she had been about three weeks at home, the packing started to come away. She had had much pain since that happening, and her nerves had been affected. She could not now do washing or polishing. Cross-examined by Mx* Meredith, witness said she had been complaining of abdominal pains ovex* a number of years, but since the operation there had been a new type of pain. She was visited by Dr. W. H. Horton, Dr. J. W. Bridgman and Dr. Craven two days after she discovered the gauze. Richard Bailey, husband of the plaintiff, said he went to the hospital and reported the finding of the gauze. Dr. Craven said he was sorry this had happened, and that he would report it to the board. He knew that an offer had been made by the board to his wife to recompense her, and that she refused. Dr. K. Mackenzie had told him that the packing had done no injury. Dr. W. H. Horton said that from what he learned he considered that . the shock, fear, and haemorrhage had had a very bad effect on the patient’s nervous system. She was a bad case of neurasthenia. A good deal of the pain after the operation, witness said> was due to the presence of the gauze in her body. He had told both the plaintiff and her husband that the pack had done. hex’ no physical damage. Dr. J. W. Bridgman said that when he first examined the plaintiff her condition suggested traumatic neurasthenia. The hearing was adjourned.