Our client brought a clinical negligence claim against a hospital regarding the standard of care they received from a surgeon.
Our client occasionally suffers from haemorrhoids but they managed these effectively with topical creams. Our client experienced pain at the right side of their anus and following an examination, their General Practitioner (GP) diagnosed a perianal abscess and that our client needed to go to hospital to have the abscess drained.
Our client attended the hospital that day and told the triage nurse that their GP had diagnosed a perianal abscess.
Our client was seen by a surgical doctor who diagnosed a perianal abscess. The doctor told our client that he needed an operation under general anaesthetic to incise and drain the perianal abscess. Our client signed a consent form which listed the proposed procedure as an examination under anaesthetic and incision and drainage of perianal abscess. Our client was not advised that they might undergo a haemorrhoidectomy.
Our client underwent surgery but despite the proposed procedure being listed as incision and drainage of perianal abscess, the surgeon carried out an examination under anaesthetic and haemorrhoidectomy and failed to drain the abscess.
Our client had to undergo a second operation under general anaesthetic to drain the perianal abscess.
Our client suffered ongoing perianal pain and underwent several unpleasant procedures, including a PR examination, proctoscopy, rigid sigmoidoscopy and two further operations under general anaesthetic.
The main allegation was that the Defendant failed to carry out incision and drainage of the peri-anal abscess and carried out haemorrhoidectomy without obtaining our client’s consent to this.
It was alleged that had our client undergone incision and drainage of perianal abscess rather than haemorrhoidectomy, they would have recovered fully from this within 4 weeks and would have avoided the need for any further procedures or operations.
As a result of the failures, our client underwent an unnecessary operation under general anaesthetic, without their consent, by way of haemorrhoidectomy, they suffered the pain of proctoscopy and rigid sigmoidoscopy and underwent two further operations under general anaesthetic.
Our client was successful in their clinical negligence claim and recovered the sum of £15,000 by way of compensation. If you have not given consent for surgery and suffered as a result then give us a call.
