Our client brought a clinical negligence claim against a hospital regarding the standard of care she received from an orthopaedic surgeon.
Our client underwent a total right knee replacement for right knee pain and in the operation note, the surgeon recorded that the surgical cutting block was placed the wrong way on the knee, causing the wrong cut to be made. As a result of this error, a piece of bone fractured from the femur and needed to be re-attached using 4 staples.
After our client was discharged home, she suffered a fracture of her right knee as a result of the wrong cut having being made during her previous surgery. Our client underwent corrective surgery to stabilise the fracture under general anaesthetic.
Our client later suffered a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and stroke. She has had a poor outcome for her right leg which is very painful.
The main allegations were that that it was a breach of duty of care to incorrectly place the cutting block during right knee replacement surgery, to fail to adequately stabilise the incorrect cut made and to fail to manage our client appropriately post-operatively in that she was advised to mobilise in a standard fashion.
Had the cutting block been placed correctly, our client would have successfully undergone right knee replacement without any damage to her femur and would have made a good recovery with minimal, if any, ongoing right knee pain and no complications.
As a result of the breaches of duty of care identified above, our client suffered significant damage to her femur and experienced the avoidable pain and suffering of this injury. Furthermore, our client suffered an avoidable fracture, the need for corrective surgery under general anaesthetic, deep vein thrombosis, a stroke, ongoing right knee pain and psychiatric injury.
Our client was successful in her clinical negligence claim and recovered the sum of £50,000 by way of compensation for the fracture claim. Our team regulalry deal with clients who have suffered when surgeons have missed fractures and can claim compensation.
