Doctors amputated wrong leg

Treatment error: Doctors amputate wrong leg and end up in court.
Two Austrian doctors have to face trial in Innsbruck for amputating the wrong leg of a 91-year-old lady. The charge is negligent assault or negligent bodily harm under particularly dangerous conditions.

91-year-old patient was amputated the wrong leg
The 91-year-old patient had to have her leg amputated because of a serious vascular disease. On June 16, everything in the hospital in St. Johann (Kitzbühel district) was prepared for a surgery, but in the end the doctors had amputated the wrong leg. The subsequent investigation, initiated by the prosecution, found that one of the accused physicians had created a flawed surgical plan and the other had mis-flagged before surgery. In addition, there were serious gaps in the security system of the hospital or this was implemented only inconsistently. So the surgical team renounced the obligatory „Team time-out“, which is commonplace in hospitals and includes a final safety check by the surgical team. The surgeon, anesthesiologist and surgical assistant usually discuss which limbs should be amputated to prevent such mistakes in the operation.

Charge for negligent assault
While the surgeon has to answer for negligent assault in particularly dangerous circumstances, his colleague, who had created the faulty surgical plan, only because of negligent assault in court, as Hansjörg Mayr, spokesman for the prosecutor said. The trial is expected to take place in November.

Doctors have neglected their due diligence
The doctors had, immediately after they have amputated the 91-year-old's wrong leg, her mistake noticed and a few days later the lady also removed the second leg. While general treatment errors are often not easy to understand, the situation in this case is quite clear. Normally, judges must base their judgment on the comprehensible findings of medical experts to assess whether or not there is a medical error. In Germany, for example, the criterion of negligence is the criterion for the existence of a treatment error § 276 (2) Civil Code. Thus, the doctor is obliged to the patient to observe the professional care required. According to the indictment, this was presumably not the case in the St. Johann Hospital so that it could lead to the fatal amputation of the wrong leg. (fp, 13.10.2010)

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