FEATURE: Stitched up!

Mark McLaughlin
Edinburgh Evening News
August 24, 2009

DOZENS of surgery patients have been stitched up with medical objects still inside their bodies over the last five years in the Lothians.

Government figures show that at least 29 people were admitted to NHS Lothian hospitals with objects left inside them after surgery since 2004, the second highest number in Scotland.

Last year, a total of 59 Scottish patients were found to have medical objects still inside, with six objects left inside patients in the Lothians.

It has also been revealed that one patient sued NHS Lothian in 2006, pocketing GBP 2,000 in compensation after an object was found inside her body after surgery.

Dr Charles Swainson, medical director at NHS Lothian, today maintained that such incidents only occurred in a tiny minority of cases, and the number is dropping each year.

He said: "NHS Lothian is the second largest health board in Scotland and performed a total of around 191,000 operations last year. Of this total, there were six cases where an object was retained.

"Anything left behind in surgery is deeply regrettable, and while in the majority of cases this does not cause any complications, we are not complacent and are working with the Scottish Patient Safety Programme to make procedures even safer.

"For each incident, we carry out a full investigation to establish what happened and prevent a repeat. We also have strict policies in place which demand that every instrument and swab is counted by two people at the beginning of the procedure and again before each cavity is closed."

Although the exact nature of the objects left behind has not been divulged, studies have found that around two-thirds of objects recovered are swabs, with the rest being medical tools.

Objects are most regularly left behind during emergency procedures, when time is of the essence and surgical staff are under the most pressure.

Other risk factors included unexpected changes in procedure during a scheduled operation, and operating on larger patients where there is more tissue for objects to get lost.

However, despite the risk factors, patient groups insist that there is no excuse for losing objects if surgical staff follow tried-and-tested practices.

Jean Turner, director of Scotland Patients Associations and a former anaesthetist, said: "When I was in the operating theatre in the mid-1970s, every piece of medical equipment was accounted for, right down to counting the swabs when opening a pack of 12 to make sure an extra one hadn't dropped in there.

"What is most worrying about these figures over the last five years is that they've remained so consistent, there's no sign of them dropping off and it beggars belief these mistakes are still being made so consistently without some new procedures to bring the numbers down."