Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A woman, who was left un­able to have chil­dren af­ter un­der­go­ing a pro­ce­dure at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, has sued for med­ical neg­li­gence.

Late last year, lawyers rep­re­sent­ing the woman, whose iden­ti­ty was with­held due to the na­ture of the case, filed the law­suit against the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA), which op­er­ates the State-owned med­ical in­sti­tu­tion. 

Ac­cord­ing to her court fil­ings, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, in 2012 the woman un­der­went an op­er­a­tion at the hos­pi­tal to re­move her right fal­lop­i­an tube. 

In mid-Oc­to­ber 2019, she re­turned to the hos­pi­tal af­ter ex­pe­ri­enc­ing ex­cru­ci­at­ing ab­dom­i­nal pain. 

Tests were per­formed and she was di­ag­nosed as hav­ing a corneal/in­ter­sti­tial ec­topic preg­nan­cy. She was ad­vised to un­der­go an op­er­a­tion to re­move her left fal­lop­i­an tube, or she may die. 

“The claimant, with­out full in­for­ma­tion and de­pen­dent on the de­fen­dant’s ser­vants and/or agents, was left un­der the im­pres­sion that her on­ly two choic­es were be­tween the said surgery or death, signed a con­sent form which out­lined that some com­pli­ca­tions or ef­fects that could or may oc­cur in­clud­ing the fact that she would be un­able to have any fu­ture preg­nan­cies,” her lawyers Ed­win and Shawn Roop­nar­ine said. 

They claimed that af­ter the op­er­a­tion, the left fal­lop­i­an tube was sent for histopathol­o­gy analy­sis, which showed that there was no re­cent preg­nan­cy as ini­tial­ly di­ag­nosed, and it was not rup­tured. 

In the law­suit, the woman is con­tend­ing that the hos­pi­tal’s doc­tors were neg­li­gent in mis­di­ag­nos­ing her con­di­tion. 

“The de­fen­dant neg­li­gent­ly failed to ob­tain the claimant’s in­formed con­sent for surgery by not ad­vis­ing and dis­cussing and/or of­fer­ing her al­ter­na­tive sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dures, in­clud­ing a salp­in­gos­to­my, which would have spared her fer­til­i­ty in this case,” her lawyers said.

“The sur­geon failed to ap­pre­ci­ate and/or recog­nise and/or dis­tin­guish be­tween a nor­mal fal­lop­i­an tube and one with an ec­topic preg­nan­cy and so wrong­ly and neg­li­gent­ly re­moved the fal­lop­i­an tube,” they added. 

They al­so con­tend­ed that doc­tors failed to prop­er­ly ad­vise her of her med­ical op­tions be­fore con­vinc­ing her to agree to the surgery. 

Through the law­suit, she is seek­ing sig­nif­i­cant com­pen­sa­tion for the pain and suf­fer­ing she en­dured. 

“The claimant suf­fered great men­tal and emo­tion­al suf­fer­ing and dis­tress, which led to dis­cord and dishar­mo­ny in her mar­riage as the claimant and her hus­band de­sired fur­ther chil­dren,” her lawyers said. 

She is al­so seek­ing be­tween $100,000 and $300,000 in fur­ther com­pen­sa­tion, which she es­ti­mat­ed is the costs as­so­ci­at­ed with un­der­go­ing in-vit­ro fer­til­i­sa­tion in the fu­ture.