British Hospital Sued After Surgeons Remove Wrong Testicle From Cancer Patient
Having a cancerous testicle removed is probably a stressful enough procedure; there's the actual surgery in a sensitive, important part, not to mention the life-threatening disease if the procedure fails. So odds are the 48-year-old Wiltshire man who went in for surgery last June to have a cancerous testicle removed was already worried before he awoke from surgery to discover a nightmare scenario come true: Surgeons at Salisbury District Hospital had removed the healthy testicle instead of the cancerous one. So the Wiltshire man made the appropriate decision to sue the hospital, citing concerns that the botched surgery might have ruined his ability to have children.
"The matter is in the hands of my solicitor," the man told the UK's Metro. "She is about to issue proceedings now. I have no other comment to make."
According to Metro, doctors realized their mistake after 40 minutes and froze the removed testicle while a plastic surgeon rushed to the scene to try and reattach it. But the reattachment surgery was unsuccessful.
For its part, the hospital accepted some blame in a statement, calling the incident "regrettable."
"We have received notification from solicitors of pending legal action. This is a regrettable incident, and the trust once again offers its sincere apologies to the patient," Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust said in a statement to the local Salisbury Journal.
