Docs Leave Foot-Long Instrument In Woman

Spatula-Like Instrument Left Inside Woman For 5 Months

8:49 am EST February 19, 2010

PRAGUE -- It took five long months for a Czech woman to discover the reason for her pain: Doctors had left a foot-long medical tool inside her abdomen. This month, doctors at a clinic in the southeastern town of Ivancice discovered their colleagues had forgotten to remove a spatula-like surgical instrument from the woman following gynecological surgery in September.

Top regional official Michal Hasek apologized to 66-year-old Zdenka Kopeckova and said Monday that the region, which is in charge of the clinic, plans to compensate her.

Clinic head Jaromir Hrubes blamed "a series of individual failures" and said four employees had been punished.

CT24 news television reported that the woman, who complained repeatedly to her doctors about the pain, plans to sue.

http://www.newsnet5.com/health/22607113/detail.html

:wow:

Thanks for the ear worm.

costs plus $250,000 she would have to prove that the surgical team planned to leave the instrument inside her.

Thank ya' Governor George W!

No permanent damage, just a bit of discomfort until it was discovered. A quarter million in compensation is a lot of money for that.

that with only $250k possible the patient would have to foot the cost of suing entirely on her own. An attorney costs between a few hundred and thousands of dollars an hour. How many hours could you buy? The only other option is to get an attorney to take the case on contingency whereby the attorney absorbs all costs in exchange for a % of the settlement. The potential settlement must be large enough to cover all the costs of the case and net the law firm a reasonable profit. If that possibility doesn't exist no attorney will take the case and without thousands or tens of thousands of dollars to hire an attorney the patient is impotent in the face of deep pockets.

Sure, it hurts for a bit, but no biggie. Right?

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I can't believe people are so callous about women's lives. We'll just send her through major surgery, cut her open, and remove a foot-long object from her abdomen. Major surgery when it's done on women is considered an inconvenience and a bit of discomfort.

How does the fact it happened to a woman play into this AT ALL?

just reminded me of the anti-choice talking point that for women, going through labor or major surgery is an "inconvenience."

Being shot, though - that sounds all manly, like something that could happen to a guy. That's why people don't refer to it as "minor discomfort," I figure.

"Being shot, though - that sounds all manly..." How so?

is something that happens primarily to men (90% or so male victims) and is romanticized in movies as part of men's culture (war movies, westerns, etc.). Unlike childbirth, which doesn't happen to too many men.

Things that happen to women exclusively (like c-sections) are often trivialized through language, as in the anti-choice crowd's language (an inconvenience). I found echoes of that in language used in the OP ("discomfort" to describe both the pain of having a foot long metal object in a woman's stomach, and the pain and recovery of the resulting surgery to cut open a woman's abdomen to remove an object that large.)

I have had abdominal surgery - it was nothing compared to birthing or kidney stones which were more "natural" not sure what you are getting at.

But go ahead and assume it was best described as "discomfort."

:crazy:

with organ function it might not have been so bad - one would think if it was intensely painful some kind of imaging would have been done.

One can live just fine with artificial "things" in their body - as long as there is no infection or puncturing of tissue. My point was it COULD be described as minor discomfort - that is in the realm of possibility. Having an object in the abdomen is not necessarily extremely painful - I mean obviously it might be, one would think bending would at least elicit some kind of sensation, on the other hand it might be unbearable.

Discomfort could describe both the object's presence and the surgery to remove it.

Quoting from the post I responded to:

"No permanent damage, just a bit of discomfort until it was discovered."

Note how that's not even phrased as a possibility. It's just a declarative statement.

your outrage seems misplaced - I just tried to explain the possibilities from personal experience. I'm done, now.:hi:

I would be more inclined to believe a foot long instrument in the abdomen would cause ratcheting, agonizing, pain.

we have the best health care in the world!


(god, i hate that meme)

Oh......nevermind...

...every story like this will cause some people to blame the government. I come from a country with socialized healthcare, and it's great, but it is also an endless political football.

No se...what? Oh. Never mind.

I'm not saying anything, I'm just sayin'.

;)

each other because no one knew where the foot long whatchamacallit was:

Did you check the sterilizer?
It's not there!
Did you look in the drawer?