NHS pays £250k for mistaken amputation

Crikey! Perhaps this poor guy would have been better served getting a neighbour to cut his toe off with a rusty saw.

A series of medical failures has lad to an NHS Trust paying £250,000 in damages after a patient was admitted to hospital with a toe infection and ended up having his leg amputated.

Former butcher Ian Watts said the Medway hospital’s failure to control his diabetes led to him losing half of his left leg after he was taken into hospital with pain in his toe in July 2004.

The hospital first decided to amputate his toe, but the pain in Watt’s left foot worsened and doctors said they would need to remove the leg below the knee.

Watts said medical staff neglected to control his blood sugar levels and had to revive him after he lost consciousness on the way to the operating theatre.

He also claimed that after the operation nurses nearly gave him the wrong medication because the hospital ward was in a “state of disarray”.

Watt’s condition was made worse when a pressure stocking was applied too tightly to his right leg causing a blood blister to develop.

After he was sent home an ulcer formed on his right foot and he was readmitted to hospital where he was told he would lose his right leg as well.

“I was extremely depressed and distraught at the treatment I had received,” said Watts. “I couldn’t face living without legs.”

But after seeking a second opinion, Watts underwent a nine-hour operation which saved his right leg.

Kashmir Uppal from Thompsons Solicitors said “Medway NHS Trust never admitted liability for what we consider to have been a series of failures that led to the loss of one leg and the near loss of the other,” adding that the Trust initially refused to settle the case out of court.

But a few months before the trial, Medway NHS Foundation Trust agreed to pay Watts £250,000 in compensation in an out-of-court settlement.

Source: Health and Safety at Work