A 33-year-old woman had two surgeries. During the first one, she was left with a surgical retractor in her body. As a result of the second operation, after the object had been removed, the woman died. Not immediately, but shortly after the operation - said Leszek Sobieski, the director of the voivodeship hospital in Konin (Greater Poland voivodeship). The prosecutor’s office is investigating the circumstances of the woman’s death.
The woman was taken to the hospital in Konin in late August. After the operation, she was suffering from abdominal pains. During the second surgery, doctors removed a half-kilogram surgical retractor that had been left inside the woman’s body after the first operation. The 33-year-old died on September 5.
Aleksandra Marańda from the District Prosecutor's Office in Konin informed that the woman's relatives had notified the prosecutors about the case last Friday.
"The inquiry has been launched into a possible manslaughter, for which the punishment is up to 5 years in prison, and life or health endangerment - up to 3 years," she said.
The prosecutor added that evidence is being collected. Medical documents will be analysed, expert witnesses will be called up, witnesses are to be questioned, including the deceased's sister.
"The collected evidence will allow us to determine whether there was a cause and effect relationship between the doctors' actions and the death of Ms Emilia," Marańda said.
Medical malpractice
What is clear so far is that the 33-year-old resident of Cienin-Kolonia in the Słupca county underwent a planned operation in the Konin hospital on August 27. Two days later, an unplanned surgery was conducted.
"The family was told that during the operation a foreign body had been removed from the woman's body, without getting into details. On August 29, the patient was taken to the intensive care ward in a coma, from which she didn't come out until her death. The family read in the death certificate that the unplanned surgery had been performed to remove the surgical instrument that had been sewed in during the first operation," the prosecutor said.
The director of the voivodeship hospital in Konin, Leszek Sobieski, comfirmed that a medical malpractice had occured in the hospital.
"The malpractice took the form of sewing up of a surgical instrument inside the body," Sobieski told TVN24. "The instrument weighing approximately half a kilogram, a retractor used to expose body layers. Quite big instrument," he added and explained that the woman had two operations.
"During the first operation, the surgical instrument was sewed inside. After the second surgery, in which the instrument was removed, the patient died. Not immediately, but shortly after," Sobieski said.
Autor: gf / Źródło: TVN24 News in English, PAP
Źródło zdjęcia głównego: tvn24