SURGEON’S NEGLIGENCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19903, 24 September 1926, Page 9

SURGEON’S NEGLIGENCE

FOUCEPS LEFT IN WOUND. DEATH OF A WOMAN PATIENT. AN EXTRAORDINARY CASE. (Pres. Association —By Telegraph—Copyright.) LONDON, September 22. How a surgeon left a pair of 6in forceps in a woman's intestines after an operation in 1923 was disclosed at Westminster at the inquest on the body of Mrs Florence Tapp. Her husband gave evidence that she apparently recovered from the original operation for an abdominal cyst, but recently complained, saying that she felt a piece of wire inside. She was readmitted to St. George’s Hospital. The resident surgeon gave evidence that a doctor, who was at present in New Zealand, operated in 1923. The operation last week revealed a pair of broken forceps in the region of the pelvis. Dr George Thornton gave evidence that he assisted to operate, on Mrs Tapp. It was usi ' for the operating to count the instruments. The Coroner said that he was amazed that Mrs Tapp had been able to walk for three years with a huge pair of forceps inside her body. He recalled that a distinguished West End surgeon had made the same mistake. It was the usual practice for the assistant to count the instruments before and after using them, but the law held the surgeon m 'onsiblc. He returned a verdict of death from peritonitis, following the removal of a pair if forceps negligently overlooked by the doctor, though he was not grossly culpable.— A. and N.Z. Cable.