A patient was awake during an operation but was unable to alert surgeons because he has a disability that left him unable to tell them.
Corey Burke, 25, said his ordeal wasn't painful but instead described it as “very uncomfortable” when the anaesthetic failed to work.
Mr Burke, from Queensland, Australia, has an intellectual disability and would usually have had a mentor in with him, the Daily Star reports.
But the doctors had ordered the mentor to leave the room.
Due to his disability, which Mr Burke said is invisible, he was unable to communicate with the doctors so he was powerless to stop the surgery despite him being able to feel everything.
He relived his ordeal telling Australia's disability royal commission: “I was still conscious and tried to tell them, but they did the operation anyway.”
Mr Burke said his adrenaline would often rise prior to having surgery and his body would fight off the effects of anaesthetic.
He added that it "wasn't painful but it was very uncomfortable".
"People with special needs need a little extra care, especially if they get anxiety or nervous," Mr Burke said.
"If a person is having a meltdown, it may not be part of their disability and it isn't because they're a bad person."
Mr Burke wants doctors to have more training to deal with people who have a disability, ABC.net reported.
He said: “People don’t know that I have a disability. My disability isn’t visible. Sometimes nurses don’t know I have a disability until they talk to me.”
He told the inquiry he used a "toolkit" which included a safety blanket and other sensory items that helped his anxiety.
Experts backed Mr Burke's call telling the panel that there needs to be better training for doctors to understand people with a cognitive disability.
The 10th public hearing of the disability royal commission is examining how Australian medical professionals can better treat patients who have a cognitive disability.
