Student receives six-figure payout after New Cross Hospital medics delay surgery
A STUDENT has received a six-figure payout after medics waited five days to remove an ovarian cyst.
The 20-year-old has been left unable to fall pregnant naturally following the 'error' caused by doctors at New Cross Hospital.
She has since been paid £165,000 by Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the city hospital, after it admitted liability.
Rosalie Reading, Irwin Mitchell's specialist medical negligence lawyer who represented the woman, said: "Our client has been left distraught by the fact that, although she voiced her concerns regarding her diagnosis, the hospital did not take her opinion on board.
"The result is that our client has been left almost certainly infertile due to lack of ovarian function and has been left with the effects of early menopause.
“It’s now vital that the NHS trust ensures it puts measures in place to prevent a repeat of such incidents so no other women have to go through the pain and suffering that our client has experienced.”
The woman, who had a medical history of ovarian cysts and had her right ovary and fallopian tube removed in 2010, was admitted to the hospital after experiencing pain in her abdomen in January 2016.
She was transferred to a gynaecological ward but no assessment of her pelvis was carried out and she was told she had to wait for an ultrasound scan.
A 9cm cyst was uncovered when the woman, then 18, eventually under went the ultrasound but medics only sent her for an MRI scan three days later - by which time the cyst had grown to 11cm.
She then had surgery to remove her left ovary and fallopian tube, five days after her initial admission into hospital.
Ms Reading added: "Given her medical history of ovarian cysts, when our client started to experience severe abdominal pain she felt sure she was suffering from the same condition.
"However, despite repeated pleas from our client and her family, there was an unreasonable delay in diagnosing her condition and subsequently performing surgery."
The trust accepted emergency surgery would have been performed if a senior review had been performed when the woman was admitted, and said the ovary would have been 'untwisted and at least partly salvageable'.
The woman, who did not want to be named, said: "The last two years have been extremely difficult for me and my family as a result of failures by New Cross Hospital.
"The hardest thing to come to terms with is that I will not be able to conceive children naturally. I had always planned to have children but now my plans have changed in so many ways.
"As well as the physical pain and scars I’ve been left with, which are a constant reminder of what I’ve been through, my experiences have had a huge impact on me mentally.
"The support my family have given me has really helped and I’m relieved the Trust has admitted liability for what I’ve been through. I now hope that I can now start to draw a line under my ordeal and focus all my energies on my studies."
