Pensioner who lost her leg after misdiagnosis receives six-figure payout
13/10/2009
A 72-year-old woman has received a substantial six-figure compensation payout after her leg was needlessly amputated by a team of world-leading medical specialists.
Doreen Nicholls, from Halesowen in the Midlands, won an out-of-court settlement after an investigation revealed that hospitals pathology lab had wrongly identified a lump on Mrs. Nicholls’s foot as cancer.
The investigation also revealed that the lab had made a number of similar errors in the past. The solicitor representing the pensioner is now calling for the hospital to make sure action is taken so that mistakes are not repeated.
Mrs. Nicholls had been suffering from a continuous swelling in her left foot. After visiting her GP she was referred to Birmingham’s Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in August 2007.
A multi-disciplinary team including members from the orthopaedic, radiology and histology departments, didn’t all agree on what the condition was but the decision was made to follow the histopathology findings. The findings from a needle biopsy showed “features of an aggressive tumour” from a soft tissue cancer known as sclerosing epitheliod fibrosarcoma.
Mrs. Nicholls underwent amputation surgery of her left leg, below the knee, on 10th October 2007 after being warned that it was the only safe way to stop the cancer spreading. Only after post-operative tests were carried out was it discovered that the swelling in Doreen’s foot was due to a non-cancerous growth known as pigmented villo nodular synovitis.
The mother-of-two and grandmother-of-one decided to pursue a clinical negligence claim, she said: “I put my complete trust in these doctors. When they told me I had cancer and there was no option but to have my leg taken off, I believed it was my only chance of survival. When my surgeon admitted to me afterwards that there was no cancer after all, I was in complete shock - there are no words to properly describe how I felt.”
The Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has agreed an out of court six-figure sum settlement with Mrs. Nicholls despite not admitting liability, claiming that its medical personnel had made a ‘well informed diagnosis’.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Nicholls’s case is not an isolated one. The hospital previously identified a problem with the histopathology department in 1993 where a report showed “a worrying increase in apparent errors.” A review was ordered to look into cases from the previous 8 years, of those reviewed 2.7 percent were regarded as serious enough to require in-patient treatment at the hospital.
Tim Deeming, a clinical negligence expert with Irwin Mitchell solicitors, who represented Mrs. Nicholls said: “We believe that this hospital completely failed in its duty of care to Mrs. Nicholls. This is not the usual story or an error by an inexperienced, junior medic, but of a group of clinical experts – three of them world renowned in their particular fields.
“Independent experts have confirmed that if an open biopsy rather than a needle biopsy had been carried out on Mrs. Nicholls’ foot prior to surgery, this would have led to the correct diagnosis.
“Given that not all members of the medical team came to the same conclusion, the question remains why their findings weren’t double checked before they carried out the amputation.
“If Mrs. Nicholls’ case had been an isolated incident, this would have been bad enough, but I am extremely concerned that the hospital appears to have learned nothing from the previous errors it identified back in 1993 and has not taken the necessary steps to protect patients from the risks of misdiagnosis.”
Since she lost her leg Mrs. Nicholls’s life has been changed completely and she now finds that she is not able to carry out many everyday activities. She cannot enjoy gardening and is unable to face going to the local swimming pool, something she used to do each week.
Mrs. Nicholls has used some of the money from the clinical negligence compensation to fund private prosthesis treatment and has found her situation much improved by her prosthetic leg that she had custom made.
Mrs. Nicholls added: “I’m determined to get on with my life and the compensation will really make a difference, but it cannot undo what’s done and my life will never be the same again.”
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