A WOMAN’S CLAIM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23517, 3 June 1938, Page 12

A WOMAN’S CLAIM

HOSPITAL BOARD SUED CARELESS TREATMENT ALLEGED PRESENCE OF FOREIGN BODY (Per United Press Association) AUCKLAND, June 2. A claim for £160*5 general damages and £213 special damages was made against the Auckland Hospital Board in the Supreme Court to-day by Mrs Mary Margaret Barry, aged 32, before Mr Justice Callan and a jury of 11. The panel of jurors proved insufficient and only the consent of counsel to proceed with 11 jurors prevented the unusual procedure of “praying a tales,” or enlisting a juror from among th« persons in court, from being adopted. In her statement of claim the plaintiff said she was a patient at the Auckland Hospital from January 10, 1937, to October 19. 1937. On January 11. and on April 7 she was operated on bv doctors in the board’s employ, and attended to by the matron and nursing staff. During one of these operations a swab or foreign body was left in the plaintiff’s abdomen. It was covered over or so concealed that the cause of her resulting injuries was not known to her until after an operation on, November 27. Between August 10, when the plaintiff was examined, and October 19 it was claimed that the defendant through its servants had negligently failed to ascertain the presence of the swab and had negligently or incompetently treated her. The plaintiff had to enter a private hospital on November 19 and the swab was removed, since when she had improved steadily in health, but still suffered from injuries caused by the alleged negligent acts of the defendant and its servants. She was unable to attend to her household duties, had for some months been almost unable to walk, and her expectation of life had been considerably shortened.

The defence admitted that the plaintiff was a patient from January 10 to February 15, from April 6 to July 30. from August 10 to October 19, and at a convalescent home from February 15 to April 6, but denied all the other allegations and set up the further alternative defence that the plaintiff had failed to commence her action within six months of the date of the acts of which she complained. The plaintiff gave evidence on the lines of her statement of claim, She said she discussed her case with Dr Bridgeman, and after refusing to go back to the Auckland Hospital, went to the Mater Misericordise Hospital, where she was operated on by Dr Bridgeman, When she first went to see him her health was so bad that she seriously thought of taking all the tablets she had. After Dr Bridgeman’s operation the pain ceased. The plaintiff said she had asked Dr Bridge- , man what he had found, and he said she was lucky to be alive, i: Cross-examined, the witness said that Dr Bridgeman had removed * swab, not a diseased ovary with a cyst. One member of the Mater staff told her that an ovary had been removed, but Dr Bridgeman told her—’ it would have been an impossibility to do it. He told her before he operated that he would not operate unless he had definite evidence that there was a foreign body in her. . Dr J. W. Bridgeman said he first saw the plaintiff early in November, 1937. She was then practically “skin and bone.” As the result of an ex- , aminatibn he came to the conclusion , that there was a foreign body in the plaintiff’s abdomen. Later, she was admitted to the Mater. Hospital. A piece of thread was washed out from one of the sinuses the'day before the operation. When the foreign body was removed it had the appearance of a small swab or piece of -dead tissue. He did not know what it was. A thick-walled, abscessed cavity was also removed, and later witness - f . removed from its side a swab that was lightly adhering to it. His opinion about the other specimen was that it was a piece of debris which had been dislodged from the swab by the washing out process. He could not say how long it had been there. In his case notes on the plaintiff witness said there was no mention of an ovary or a swab. The first time he mentioned a swab was in a letter to Mr Sullivan, the plaintiff’s counsel, in March. The reason for his reticence was that he did not want to be mixed up in any trouble between Mrs Barry and the Auckland Hospital. \ The hearing was adjourned.