Ausie Hospital amputates wrong leg

[sammyg2]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,595808,00.html

Doctors Amputate Woman's Wrong Leg
Friday, July 02, 2010

A 90-year-old woman who went to the hospital to get her leg amputated had the wrong limb removed by Austrian doctors, the Austrian Independent reported Friday.

The patient, who was rushed to St. Johann hospital in Tyrol, Austria last month suffering from vascular disease, had both legs removed after doctors realized they initially removed the wrong one.

Hospital bosses tried to cover up the incident and when it became public they hid behind their Hippocratic Oath, claiming medical confidentiality, according to newspaper Kleine Zeitung.

Prosecutors were expected to begin investigating and the doctors involved could face charges of negligence and causing bodily harm.

In a statement, the hospital said human error as well as a breakdown in safety measures were to blame for the mistake, adding that it would "do everything to guarantee this incident is clarified without fault," AFP reported.

The worst part is, she couldn't even sue the hospital or the doctors because the judge threw it out of court. said she didn't have a leg to stand on!

Boooooo hissss, I'm in trouble for that one. Bad boy. Bad.

Now before anyone wants to get all uppity there was a really, really old joke about this. It went basically the same way this story goes.
See, that's the irony. It actually happened! Real life imitated a joke!

[scottbombedout]

No compensation, the judge told her to hop it.

[onewhippedpuppy]

[on2wheels52]

When I had my cataracts fixed (a couple of years passed between the two) I remember them writing on my head with a marker to denote which eye was being worked. At least three different people asked me which eye was to get the procedure. So sorry that happened to the woman.
Jim

[BlueSkyJaunte]

Originally Posted by on2wheels52

When I had my cataracts fixed (a couple of years passed between the two) I remember them writing on my head with a marker to denote which eye was being worked. At least three different people asked me which eye was to get the procedure. So sorry that happened to the woman.
Jim

Same for me when I had my shoulders 'scoped. The surgeon actually signed his name in marker to the shoulder that was getting cut.

[URY914]

There is a local hospital here that has made the news several times for cutting off the wrong pieces. University Community Hospital of Tampa needs to be avoided at all costs.

[peppy]

Ah, bad things happen to good people all the time.

[sammyg2]

Reminds me of another joke, usually told in a bar:

A guy tells his fellow drunks a story about how a co-worker got caught up in a conveyor belt and had his left arm and left leg ripped completely off.
Then as the other drunks gasp, the the story teller looks at them and says, "he's all right now!"

ba da bumb.

[Noah930]

Wrong side surgery has become a big deal over the past 10 years or so, here in America. All hospital and surgicenter ORs are expected to have some sort of protocol in place to eliminate this possibility. Obviously it still happens. There's no specific legislation or regulation to tell ORs how to do it, but each place is supposed to have a protocol they follow (which is also supposed to be marked as having been performed in the OR medical records).

Usually there's some sort of confirmation with the conscious and unsedated patient in the holding area prior to surgery on what the procedure (and side) are supposed to be. The site is then marked with a marker. In the OR prior to skin incision there's usually a "Time Out" whereby the nursing staff, surgeon, and anesthesiologist all pause to confirm the patient, procedure and side. Often each of those teams will also confirm with the patient those same things when they meet them in the pre-op holding area. OR accrediting organizations don't spell out exactly how the above process is to be performed, but the above reflects the current standards to which health care providers/facilities are held.

Not that it excuses it, but most likely part of the problem in the original post lay in the fact that this was an old woman who probably couldn't answer for herself and had bad vascular disease in both feet. You certainly couldn't ask her, "which side?" Again, not that that makes it OK by any means.

[red-beard]

One of my neighbors/biking buddies is a Anesthesiologist. He's been pulling quite a few extra shifts to cover for a doctor that was fired. The fired guy put a nerve block in the wrong leg.

[pavulon]

Fired for blocking the wrong leg seems steep. I'm not making an excuse for the guy or trying to diminish the importance of determining laterality but blocks typically take some time and then they are gone. I'd have to think there is more to it than blocking the wrong leg. Again, a bad mistake but not one that should cause loss of life or limb.

[Neilk]

wrong leg and now wrong continent...

[SIR70T]

Aussie = Australian
Ausie = who knows


Austrian ?????

[scottbombedout]

Never let proper facts get in the way of a good thread.

[Aurel]

The story reminded me of a joke:

The bad news is, we amputated the wrong leg.
The good news is, the other leg is doing much better and will not need amputation .

[Nathans_Dad]

Impossible. Bad things only happen in non-government run health care systems.

[m21sniper]

This is one of the reasons i'll never let anyone cut me open (or apart).

[pavulon]

In the past, people died of diseases that are easily cured with realtively simple surgeries today. Occassionally we see folks that for a number of reasons won't come to the hospital until things have gotten well out of control. Frequently they are Amish but occasionally not. My neighbor ended up with 3 separate surgeries and big zipper on his abdomen followed by a year-long recovery after "toughing it out" long enough to let his appendix rupture. He's now unemployed and I'd think missing a pile of work made him an easy guy to let go.

I admire a high pain threshhold more than most. However, I really admire folks who have an inner voice of reason that tells them when it's time to get checked. Folks tend to do much better during and after surgery if they're not tapped out going in.

YMMV but not much.

[Tobra]

You make an excellent point, which brings to mind a woman I always referred to as "the pig lady," a story I am certain I have related here before. She came to the hospital at the insistence of her husband, who had smelled gangrene in Korea, she should have come in sooner, but denial is common in people confronted with the loss of a limb.

[Langers]

This is one of the reasons i'll never let anyone cut me open (or apart).

Clearly a highly intelligent specimen right here.