So far, we’ve made you afraid to fly (page 370), afraid to call the police (page 223), afraid to send your kids to school (page 301), and afraid to vote (page 178). And now we’re going to make you afraid to go the hospital. (Sorry.)
ALWAYS GET A SECOND OPINION
In 1989 a man identified as Mr. C was told by doctors at Western General Hospital in Edinburgh, Scotland, that he had Huntington’s disease, an incurable brain illness. The news shocked his family and they prepared for the worst—the onset of symptoms and his eventual death. The diagnosis affected all of their lives: His wife and one of his daughters terminated their pregnancies for fear of passing on the hereditary disease, and another daughter quit school because of the stress. But by 2007, Mr. C hadn’t developed any symptoms, so doctors tested him again…and discovered that he never even had Huntington’s. “We are deeply sorry for the anxiety caused to Mr. C and his family,” said a hospital spokesperson. A lawsuit is pending.
Johanna L., a 78-year-old retiree, checked into the HochfrankenKlinik in Münchberg, Germany, in March 2008 to have knee surgery. But when she woke up in the recovery room, her knee hadn’t been operated on…and she felt a strange breeze blowing up the back of her gown. She called a nurse, who informed Johanna that she had been given an artificial anus. Apparently, there was a records mix-up: The patient who was suffering from severe incontinence got knee surgery; Johanna got that patient’s new anus. She sued the hospital, and the doctors were suspended.
In 2008 at a hospital in the Philippines, officials were forced to apologize to a 39-year-old patient. Why? Because after he checked in to have a “canister of perfume” removed from his colon (no report on how it got there), the medical team assigned to remove it decided to film the procedure—and then uploaded it onto the Internet. The film, which featured doctors and nurses laughing around the patient’s unconscious body and cheering when they finally extracted the canister, became a hit. A hospital spokesperson later said that cameras and cell phones had been banned from operating rooms, and added that while it was acceptable at a teaching hospital to allow young doctors and nurses to watch an operation, it had been “a violation of ethical standards” for them to spray the perfume at the end.
Little blue pill: Some Viagra users have reported blue-tinted vision.
Eighty-year-old Tom Talks of Rochdale, England, was walking his dog in July 2008 when he tripped and broke his ankle. Doctors at Fairfield General Hospital put his leg in a plaster cast and sent him home. But the cast was too tight. “Every day for a week, I begged them to release the pressure,” said Talks. “It felt like my leg was trying to burst out of its skin.” They refused to loosen the cast…until Talks collapsed in agony. That convinced them to examine him…and they discovered an infection so severe that part of his leg had to be amputated. Afterward, Talks suffered a heart attack and developed kidney problems. His grandson, Karl Sanderson, said, “This is the 21st century—we should not be in a situation where someone might die because they fracture their ankle!” At last report, Talks’s family had filed a formal complaint with the hospital.
In the span of a few months in 2007, neurosurgeons at Rhode Island Hospital made a rash of unusual—and similar—errors: They operated on the wrong side of patients’ brains three different times. Two of the patients barely survived; one died a few weeks later. Rhode Island’s Department of Health fined the hospital $50,000 and assured the public, “We are extremely concerned about this continuing pattern.” The state ordered the hospital to develop a checklist to remind the brain surgeons to verify that they’re cutting in the right place before they start cutting.
In 2006 Toys for Tots turned down a donation of talking Jesus dolls, but later changed their minds.