A 72-year-old retired worker is suing Parkview Community Hospital Medical Center for Riverside, California medical malpractice. Francisco Torres says that Dr. Erik Wahlstrom removed the right, healthy kidney, instead of the left one. Now, Torres has to undergo dialysis every three days. Torres had expected a full recovery following the July 14 procedure, but he is still at Riverside rehabilitation center and will no longer be able to live alone.
In Torres's Riverside County, California medical malpractice complaint, he is seeking damages for injuries he sustained from the wrong-site surgery. Torres is accusing the surgeon and the hospital of battery, malpractice, and failing to disclose Wahlstrom's record with the Medical Board of California.
Doctors were supposed to operate on his left kidney after a cancerous mass was discovered. Torres's medical chart initially noted that the left kidney is the one that doctors had to take out. A day prior to the procedure, however, the surgeon and a nurse made a notation in Torres's chart that his right kidney was the one that needed to be surgically removed.
This is not the first complaint filed against Wahlstrom, who founded Riverside Community Hospital's Southern California Transplantation Institute. Earlier this year, the surgeon settled a San Bernardino, California medical malpractice lawsuit in arbitration for nearly $2 million over another kidney procedure. The transplant surgery took place in 2005 and an infection occurred. As a result, the patient's body rejected the new kidney, which had to be removed.
Wrong Site Surgeries
Wrong-site procedures are never supposed to happen, yet as of June, The Joint Commission has reported 837 wrong-site surgeries. Hospitals are supposed to put procedures in place to prevent surgeons from operating on the wrong body part and/or removing the wrong organ. In many cases, the damage done from this type of botched procedure cannot be easily fixed. For example, once you take out a kidney, you cannot put it back in the patient's body. Removing the wrong breast can leave the patient disfigured or cause a cancerous mass on the unhealthy breast to spread.
The injuries and health issues that arise from a wrong-site can permanently disable the patient and even result in wrongful death.
Surgery patient sues doctor, hospital, claiming wrong kidney removed, Press-Enterprise, September 2, 2009
Man Claims Hospital Removed Wrong Kidney, KTLA, September 4, 2009
Related Web Resources:
Universal Protocol for Preventing Wrong Site Surgery, Joint Commission
Difference Between Near Miss, Wrong-Site Surgery Studied, Modern Medicine, August 17, 2009
