A judge has ordered a Nelson Mandela Bay surgeon to fork out more than R2m in damages after performing surgery on a woman who nearly died from the operation, and who has been scarred for life and left with internal injuries.
Dr Nico van Niekerk was found to have acted negligently, and apart from the damages, must also pay the costs of the civil suit, reports TimesLIVE.
Acting Judge Tanya Zietsman found Van Niekerk had failed to provide Sherillee Morris with the reasonable care expected from a specialist surgeon.
Van Niekerk, based at Netcare Greenacres Hospital, was initially sued for nearly R4.5m after he performed both a redo and then a revision hiatus hernia surgery on Morris nearly eight years ago.
During the 28 May 2015 laparoscopic surgery intended to correct the previous procedure from 2009, Van Niekerk had injured her suprahepatic inferior vena cava (IVC), leading to sudden, severe bleeding in her chest cavity.
A specialist cardiothoracic surgeon had to perform an emergency left-sided thoracotomy, otherwise Morris would have bled to death. She also suffered hypovolemic shock which could have led to organ failure.
She stayed in the ICU more than a week and then underwent more surgery to fix her incarcerated hiatus hernia on 7 June 2015.
Van Niekerk admitted he had caused her injuries but denied any negligence.
Registered specialist surgical gastroenterologist and retired emeritus professor from the University of Cape Town, Professor Sandie Thomson, testified that in his view, Van Niekerk had caused the life-threatening injury unnecessarily as there was no rush to perform the 28 May surgery.
Thomson said Morris should have been referred to a gastroenterologist, who would then perform certain investigations to determine the cause of her severe acid reflux.
Morris should have been referred for a gastroscopy, checked to see if she had high levels of acid in her oesophagus, and that she should have received medicinal treatment, with surgery as the last resort.
Court papers revealed that on the day of Morris’ surgery, only Van Niekerk and a general practitioner were present, with the GP having to perform two tasks simultaneously by assisting Van Niekerk to operate the camera.
Thomson said Van Niekerk performed the surgery without specialist assistance which showed a lack of understanding of how complex the surgery could be and rebuffed the surgeon’s claim he performed on average one surgery of this nature a week.
According to Thomson, specialists in the field usually performed about 20 of those surgeries a year.
As a result of the 28 May procedure, Morris suffered from mild expressive and receptive aphasia, a language impairment that affected her everyday functions; struggled to respond to visual cues, and could only identify objects and not letters.
She required occupational, speech, psycho and physiotherapy, and was in intense pain and suffering. She lost her job as a senior administrative officer at the Eastern Cape Department of Health when she was medically boarded in 2019.
Zietsman found Van Niekerk was negligent on four specific grounds, including that he failed to submit Morris to adequate preoperative treatment, that he did not conduct proper planning and execution of the redo surgery, as well as that of the 7 June surgery, and that he failed to act with professional skill, as is expected of a specialist surgeon.
TimesLIVE article – Eastern Cape surgeon hit with R2m damages order (Restricted access)
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Nelson Mandela Bay surgeon sued over procedure 6 years ago
Supreme Court of Appeal’s split decision over surgical negligence
Gqeberha obs/gynae’s R4.5m settlement over mother’s injuries