Saturday 29 August 2009

Bristol man claims knee op was botched by Scandinavian doctors

A Bristol man is taking Weston General Hospital to court, claiming an operation on his knee was botched by Scandinavian doctors. Terry Heath, from Lockleaze, underwent knee replacement surgery at the hospital in 2004 but had to be operated on again at Southmead Hospital a year later to correct mistakes that were made during the initial operation.

Surgeons were drafted in from Sweden, Denmark and Finland between 2003 and 2006 as part of a £3-million scheme to reduce waiting lists for hip and knee replacement patients across the Bristol area and beyond. Issues were raised about the quality of the work carried out by some of the Scandinavian surgeons back in 2004 when Welsh consultant, David Shewring, sent letters to his patients claiming that overseas doctors employed by Weston Area Health Trust might not be skilled enough to carry out operations...

In May the Evening Post reported that more than a third of patients who were operated on by Scandinavian surgeons in Weston- super-Mare had an unsatisfactory result, and that lawyers were considering at least six cases.

Weston Area Health Trust , which runs the hospital, is conducting a review into the us of the overseas surgeons, which is likely to be completed later in the year. A spokeswoman said she was unable to comment on the matter due to the legal proceedings.
Source: This Is Bristol

4 comments:

JuliaM said...

"Surgeons were drafted in from Sweden..."

Hmm, the home of Ikea? Perhaps they just couldn't follow the instruction diagram...

Mark Wadsworth said...

I think the chap in question was operated on by a surgeon from Denmark, the home of Lego ...

Anonymous said...

Why would anyone want to leave stupid comments like the two on here, If you two had been operated on by the Swedes and had a bad outcome like the guy in the article and myself you would not find it so amusing, I have just had corrective surgery which still has not got rid of any problems the Swedes left me with 3 years ago, now I have to face either another operation or just plain put up with it either I dont want, it is a very traumatic and painful operation which takes a lot of rehab and PT after and to go through that a third time makes my blood boil, so next time you feel like being SMART think of what we are going through.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Allan, we run this blog to highlight cases like yours. Please forgive us for the occasional daft comment!