Doctor mistakenly cuts off patient’s sperm duct during operation in Liverpool

A surgeon in a United Kingdom hospital has been sacked after he mistakenly carried out a vasectomy (cutting off of a tube that carries sperms) on a patient.

According to Liverpool’s Echo newspaper, the incident occurred at Broadgreen Hospital in the city.

The paper said doctors tried an operation to reverse the damage but have been unsuccessful.
The implication is that the patient would no longer be able to have children naturally.

According to Ian Cohen, a clinical negligence lawyer, the patient could be paid more than £100,000 in compensation, depending on his age and other factors.

“If a 25-year-old who wants a family is told he won’t be able to father children it will be devastating,” he said, adding “In a case like this where the hospital has said it’s made a mistake the NHS Litigation Authority (LA) should encourage the hospital to hold its hands up.”

Independent UK reports that Dr Peter Williams, medical director at Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “In the last 12 months, three serious incidents and two never events occurred in our urology department and these were reported to the appropriate bodies.

His words: “We are still in the process of investigating some of these incidents, including looking at how to improve the processes and systems in place and are taking appropriate action. We cannot comment on the outcomes of these investigations at this stage.

“Patient safety is always our priority and we use the lessons learnt from any incident to continually improve our standard of care.”

He said that the hospital’s urology department handled more than 4,000 patients a year.
“The vast majority of feedback from these patients is overwhelmingly positive,” he added.