A Cape Town woman has been ordered to pay part of the legal costs of a case – which the judge dismissed – in which she alleged negligence by the specialist who had removed her ovarian cysts, and accidentally perforated her bladder.
In court, the teacher detailed the pain she had endured for weeks after the operation, which she blamed on the gynaecologist’s alleged negligence. The perforation was repaired within a month.
TimesLIVE reports that the High Court, however, ruled that the “perforation … can occur in the best of hands”.
The initial operation was carried out in April 2016, but the woman claimed the gynaecologist had failed to properly identify organs before separating them from her bowel and did not take enough care to avoid damaging her bladder while using a surgical tool known as a LigaSure Maryland.
She said he “failed to appreciate the tool could cause undetectable damage, leading to tissue death and leakage into her abdominal cavity”.
The court heard that after the procedure, the gynaecologist “did not come to examine or speak to her” while she was in the ward, or inform her “about what he had found out during the operation”.
“He also did not phone her to find out how she was doing while she was recuperating at home,” the patient said in her evidence.
Less than a month later she collapsed and was taken to hospital by ambulance, where a doctor told her “an ultrasound had revealed fluid in her abdomen”, and he needed to assess what was causing it.
She was booked in for a laparoscopy the next morning, and “while she was outside the theatre the (gynaecologist) arrived”.
“She told him that she did not want him there, and he left. In the ward, after the operation, he returned and said he was sorry, and that he might have injured her bladder during the operation he performed on her,” the judgment reads.
During cross-examination, the patient was shown hospital records contradicting her claim, and showing she had reported severe pain on the morning of her admission, saying it had only started the night before.
She insisted, however, that she had felt unwell and in pain since being discharged after the initial procedure, with the pain steadily worsening over time.
She was also told that, contrary to her claim, the gynaecologist had spoken to her in hospital before she was discharged, checked the medical records, and approved her discharge.
She then admitted this might have happened but still denied he had called while she was recovering at home.
Her husband testified that while waiting outside the theatre after she was admitted the second time, the gynaecologist took him to his consulting room and explained the surgery had been difficult due to heavy adhesions, and admitted he might have damaged her bladder, and then apologised.
Judge Mark Sher ruled that the patient had ultimately failed to prove the gynaecologist was negligent.
“In my view, the perforation to the bladder was an unfortunate complication, of the kind which, as the (gynaecologist’s) experts explained, can occur in the best of hands,” read the judgment. “The action is dismissed.”
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