A woman has been awarded almost €28,000 in compensation after doctors left a surgical gauze inside her abdomen following an intervention at Mater Dei Hospital 10 years ago.
Mr Justice Toni Abela said that although the court could not identify the precise moment the gauze was left inside her wound, it had caused an infection that prolonged her recovery unnecessarily.
The court said the woman had gone through “martyrdom” and it was clear that the victim had not inserted the gauze herself.
This was the hospital's responsibility where she was receiving care so the Director General within the Health Services Department had to shoulder the responsibility of this mistake.
The court heard how 53-year-old Antonia Bajada was admitted for elective hernia repair surgery in February 2014. The surgery was successful but two weeks later she was readmitted because the wound had not yet closed and she was in pain.
During her time at Mater Dei Hospital, Bajada contracted the virus MRSA which exacerbated her health problems, causing her wound to fail to heal. She resorted to a number of doctors and specialists who even told her that she was imagining the pain. She was referred to the pain clinic for treatment because she may have developed a complication known as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome.
During another hospital intervention, doctors removed liquid that was being retained inside her body and nurses regularly visited her, even at home, to change the dressings.
Discovery in the shower
One day, while she was having a shower, she realised something resembling a piece of gauze sticking out of her wound. She rushed to hospital where the gauze was found inside her abdomen.
Mr Justice Abela observed that the case had not been filed against a specific doctor, because the patient had been examined by a good number of doctors and specialists. It was filed against the Health Services Department, which was collectively responsible for the trauma she had passed through.
Various court experts concluded that the gauze differed from those used during operations but could not definitively conclude how it found itself inside the wound.
The court noted that Bajada was a housewife so there was no loss of employment but this did not mean that her role had no value. It pegged the repayment with the minimum wage. The court also heard the woman’s daughter testify how her mother never regained her health and how she depended a lot on her, her father and neighbours to shop for daily groceries.
Considering a permanent disability of 20 per cent, and that she was 53 years old when the incident happened, Mr Justice Abela ordered the health service to pay the woman €26,318 to which it added €1,500 in private doctors' expenses to reach a compensation figure of €27,818.