British boy castrated when doctors remove wrong testicle

[SplitDik (imported)]

I've never really understood how doctors can operate on the wrong side. Usually they are looking for a known problem and you'd assume they'd quickly realize that the organ/testicle whatever was actually healthy even if they had initially targeted the wrong side.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-46634002

A two-year-old boy has been left infertile after surgeons operated on the wrong testicle, his family says.

The boy was admitted to Bristol Royal Hospital for Children earlier in the week to treat an undescended testicle.

He had one healthy testicle and one that did not function. His father said surgeons operated on the wrong one by mistake and have "castrated him".

University Hospitals Bristol has apologised and said it has launched a serious incident investigation.

The boy's father, whose name has not been used to protect his son's identity, said his son's undescended testicle was discovered during a routine check up.

The toddler boy was referred to a specialist and on Monday he was booked in for an operation at the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children.

'No more tears'

The family said they were told it was "just a minimal operation" with "minimal risk" and it would be over in around 30 minutes

"We were waiting and waiting," his father said.

"After two and a half hours the manager, surgeons and consultants they came and I knew something was not right.

"Me and my wife started panicking, they called us into the office and told us things didn't go right and the operation wasn't a success."

Image caption

The operation took place at the Bristol Children's Hospital

The couple said they were told a surgeon had mistakenly inserted a camera "into the wrong side" and now their son's healthy testicle would "never work".

"I was very distressed, it was an awful disaster for a simple operation they destroyed everything and they ruined my son," his father said.

"They castrated him and now my son's future life has dramatically changed."

The boy's mother said it was "absolutely horrible" what the surgeons had done.

"They broke my heart and they basically destroyed his future," she said.

"I can't find the words to explain how I'm feeling - there are no words. Even tears, I have no more tears.

"We just hope for a miracle, this is what we hope."

'Deeply sorry'

In a statement, University Hospitals Bristol apologised saying it was "deeply sorry".

"As soon as our staff members realised what had happened, they met with the family, told them what happened, and apologised again at that point," a spokesperson said.

"I would like to re-iterate that we take patient safety extremely seriously here and also the quality of our clinical care.

"As a result, a serious incident investigation has been launched. We will keep the family informed and involved in this process."

One in 25 boys born with undescended testicles

Model was born with undescended testicles

Young boy has testicular tissue frozen

It is estimated that about one in 25 boys are born with undescended testicles, according to NHS online.

Around one in 100 boys has testicles that stay undescended unless treated.

The NHS said the "relatively straightforward" operation to move testicles into the correct position in the scrotum has a "good success rate".

[GordonGG (imported)]

That is terrible. And hopefully they can sue for millions. I know it won't make it right, but they should pay for that kind of idiocracy.

[Wolf-Pup (imported)]

I would think that surgeons can MARK which side they are supposed to work on. Not to mention everyone on the team should know what they are doing. Also I thought they they operate to bring the testicle into the scrotum, so why are they BOTH destroyed?

Lotta questions on this one! Or anytime they operate on the wrong side for that matter.

[rogerwpbfl (imported)]

There appear to be a lot of women who think boys should be castrated at an early age, they're probably cheering this life altering blunder.

He may still have a future as prime minister of the UK, or maybe he can move to Canada and be prime minister someday.

[Losethem (imported)]

That is terrible. And hopefully they can sue for millions. I know it won't make it right, but they should pay for that kind of idiocracy.

Medical practitioners are not perfect, and I seriously doubt this was a case of willful negligence. Doctors and nurses are human, just like yourself.

[Paolo]

Mistakes like this happen a lot. I know quite a few nurses (most of them qualified to be great janitors), and they've told me that things like this happen more than you'd imagine. How they happen is a mystery to me, too.

Of course, it can't happen here, as the hospital here is a wonderful newer facility that doesn't do much of anything but put Band-Aids on. If it's a good day, you might get stitches and an x-ray.

According to the local workers here, it happens around the area, and it gets covered up.

I suppose it's as bad as misplacing a patient? That's what took place here with Godson3, when he had to have kidney repair. We had all the paperwork, dates, la la la...called up as per orders to check in a couple days before, confirm all the prep, etc.

They had NO idea that he was coming! After nearly an hour on the phone, no one knew a thing about him. It was like: "Jack Smith, age 10, unblock left main ureter and realign output ureter?"

"No, never heard of him?" type type type beep... "No, he's not in the system."

"Doctor Brown?"

"He's not in this week."

Two days later, after booking another doctor in another city nearby (probably an act of God that the doctor who diagnosed it had a cancellation) and the boy was in surgery 100 miles away. Now, keep in mind that Jack's mom had already shown the doctor her shiny new .44, as this problem had gone undiagnosed for about a year, and the kid was literally dying, as no one knew what was wrong with him. So he was all about getting the boy in, lest Mother make good on her threat.

Now, for those of you in countries where you cannot legally own thousands of guns, this also happens quite a lot. Many of the police dispatchers will simply hang up the phone on you when you report an irate customer with a gun. I'm assuming, that like most people here, the cops don't like the local hospital staff, either.

Then the first freakin' hospital called, they were all prepped and ready and said, "Uh, we can't find Jack? Where is he?"

Are you kidding me? Someone somewhere knew about the surgery, and they booked it, but they couldn't do a pre-surgery interview with us? Because he wasn't in the system?

So, I'm not really surprised by this story. Not in the least.

[cutnbulls2ox (imported)]

I m with Wolf-pup on this.

How can you cut off a testicle by mistake ?

He was there to have an undescended testicle stretched out and pushed down into his scrotum where it would be secured to the sides of his scrotum with stitches in an orchiopexy. So, how can any dr not figure out which healthy testicle is already hanging correctly in his scrotum, and which testicle is hidden up in his abdomen, undescended, that needs to be preserved and pulled down into his scrotum ? Any two year old boy has big enough balls to see them plainly ! Neither ball was supposed to be cut off. Apparently only one testicle was undescended and the dr didn t do any surgery on that ball. He only cut off the boy s perfectly healthy ball hanging in his sack !

How can any dr be that g damn dumb and why didn t every nurse and or tech scream at that dumbass dr when he started cutting out the healthy ball ?

All of them should go to prison for criminal negligence and pay out money damages from their own pockets to the eunuch boy.

No way should any of them ever be allowed to work in medicine ever again !

If they all, all of them combined, can t figure out which ball is in his scrotum and which is in his abdomen, they can t have any responsible jobs after this.

[grapesoda19 (imported)]

I worked at a hospital cleaning the rooms and they couldn't keep track of who was cleaning what room. Currently that hospital has 5 outstanding lawsuits for some kind of negligence, which doesn't surprise me. Now, that's not to say everyone there is an idiot, cause they aren't. It's just most people running hospitals don't listen to the people working there and put unqualified people in positions where they can cause trouble. Unfortunately, that's the case at the local hospital. Unclear if that's what happened in this matter or someone just not paying attention (likely the case), but that's the case at my local hospital. There are people working hard to fix it though.

[ambiguous (imported)]

I would like to add that this happened in a state financed NHS hospital in the UK.

For the past few government terms there has been pressure to cut the draw on the taxpayer.

No one likes to pay taxes but sadly this sort of stuff is the side effect of a failing health service.

In the UK there is a shortage of general practitioners that is not getting filled adding more pressure on existing staff.

My endocrinologist just added to the shortage by quitting the NHS this year citing pressures working for the NHS being his reason for leaving.

There is a big shortage of nursing staff but who wants to go through the high level of training they have to do for such mediocre wages.

None of this helps the poor kid in question though but there has been cases of people over here dying in hospital corridors simply because the A and E staff could not cope.

[ReginaldBopeltin (imported)]

I would like to add that this happened in a state financed NHS hospital in the UK.

For the past few government terms there has been pressure to cut the draw on the taxpayer.

No one likes to pay taxes but sadly this sort of stuff is the side effect of a failing health service.

In the UK there is a shortage of general practitioners that is not getting filled adding more pressure on existing staff.

My endocrinologist just added to the shortage by quitting the NHS this year citing pressures working for the NHS being his reason for leaving.

There is a big shortage of nursing staff but who wants to go through the high level of training they have to do for such mediocre wages.

None of this helps the poor kid in question though but there has been cases of people over here dying in hospital corridors simply because the A and E staff could not cope.

Where I live the situation is worse, we do not have enough doctor, nurse and staff to even provide the basic services of healthcare. People dying because of infection from a routine 10 minutes surgery. Moreover you have to bring all the equipment by yourself to a surgery (scalpel, guise, disinfectants, gloves, cloths, sheet, toilet paper...etc) , the hospital will give you a list about it, because they don't have money for it. Hospitals closing one-by-one because they become unsafe (collapsing ceiling, plaster, not working or dangerous electric grid...etc.), people waiting twenty hours or more on ER with bleeding limbs (there are a lot cases when people died during the wait), serious damages.

But what makes people berserk is that there is a great amount of tax on our salary to maintain the healthcare service (around 20%). But our prime minister is spending incredible amount of money to build a church in another country, to host sport events, to replace the car-pool of the ministers...etc. and not a single penny for healthcare. That is why the doctors leaving the country which makes the things worse day-by-day...