Woman gets unwanted hysterectomy due to bad communication
A 35-year-old Polish woman was given a hysterectomy back in 2013 due to a grave error by a gynaecologist at a hospital in Limburg caused by a lack of proper communication between patient and gynaecologist. The woman’s partner acted as an interpreter and had agreed to an operation to fix a low hanging uterus, but somehow that turned into a hysterectomy.
The gynaecologist claimed in court that he did not understand at the time why the woman had agreed to a hysterectomy, but then he had not asked the woman what kind of operation she had agreed to in the first place. As well, the gynaecologist had not made it explicitly clear that she would no longer be able to have children after the operation. To make matters worse, the woman already had two children from a previous partner and this might have been seen as ‘but she already has children’. In fact, she wanted children with her new partner. The gynaecologist also didn’t ask if she was taking any kind of birth control.
This grave error will see the woman being given 33,700 euro in damages, get psychological help, while the gynaecologist has been given a warning for his subpar communication skills.
(Link: limburger.nl)
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