A hospital has amputated the wrong leg on an elderly patient and blamed the incident on “human error.”
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Staff at the Freistadt Clinic in Austria revealed that the elderly patient suffered from multiple illnesses which required one of his legs to be amputated. During the surgery on May 18, doctors amputated his right left instead of the left and said in a statement they realized the error during a bandage change on Thursday. We are deeply shocked that on Tuesday, 18 May, despite quality assurance standards, the wrong leg of an 82-year-old man … was amputated. We have to find out how this failure, this mistake could happen. I would like to apologize publicly here,” said the clinic’s medical director Norbert Fritsch.
The 82-year-old man didn’t realize the mistake due to his illness and it was difficult for him to indicate which leg needed to be amputated, the clinical staff said.
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“Unfortunately the mistake, in which the right leg was removed instead of the left, occurred as a result of a sequence of unfortunate circumstances,”
Despite the error, the patient must undergo surgery again to have his left leg amputated at mid-thigh. He also received psychological therapy to deal with the hospital’s error.
SOURCE: The Guardian