A woman was left infertile after a surgeon removed her healthy fallopian tube by mistake.
Chelsie Thomas, 27, was admitted to Walsall Manor hospital, in the West Midlands, suffering from an ectopic pregnancy in March last year. Though the pregnancy was in her right tube, the doctor mistakenly removed the left fallopian tube during surgery.
“The next day, the doctor came into my room and said everything was fine,” said Thomas. A week later, she received a phone call from the same doctor telling her to return to the hospital as he had removed the wrong tube.
“I was in shock more than anything,” Thomas recalled. “I went back and he rescanned me. As soon as the heartbeat came up on the screen, he passed out.”
She added: “I walked out of the room, I was in shock and I couldn’t breathe … I refused to let him take me back to the theatre. I didn’t want him anywhere near me.”
Thomas was assigned another doctor and taken back to the operating theatre the next morning. She spent three days recovering in the hospital, where she had been working as a healthcare assistant for nine years.
She said the mistake has ruined her life. Thomas, who has a six-year-old son, has been told she will not be able to have children without IVF treatment. Her relationship with her partner broke down as a result of the surgery and she has lost her job.
“I’m on antidepressants now because of it all. I’ve got a psychiatrist review that states that I have severe depression and I’ve got to have therapy. As I get older, the problem is not going to go away because I still can’t conceive,” Thomas said. She added she was also struggling with debt.
Kathryn Salt, Thomas’s solicitor at Irwin Mitchell, said: “We are happy that the trust has admitted liability early on in the case because it means we can focus on investigating the support Chelsie needs.
“This is what’s classed as a never event – removing the wrong tube – but unfortunately it has happened. This has had a huge impact on Chelsie both physically and emotionally.”
Dr Matthew Lewis, the medical director of Walsall Healthcare NHS trust which runs the hospital, said: “We would once again offer our sincere apologies to the patient involved for the fact that our care fell below the standard that we would expect for anyone who uses our services.
“In this particular case, while the necessary checks were carried out before surgery and consent was given, an error was regrettably made. The trust investigates errors thoroughly in accordance with our internal governance processes, working with patients and their families, our own clinicians and staff to learn lessons and put systems in place to try and avoid such incidents.”
