THE MOTHER of an eight-year-old boy broke down yesterday as she recalled asking staff at Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, Dublin, on several occasions to double-check which kidney her son was to have removed before he went into theatre.
Jennifer Stewart said she was under the impression her son was to have his right kidney removed since an outpatient appointment at the hospital on January 17th, 2008. However, consultant paediatric surgeon Prof Martin Corbally took an erroneous note of that consultation, recording that the boy needed his left kidney removed.
It set in train a series of events which culminated in the child having his healthy kidney removed at the hospital on March 21st 2008. He was left with a 9 per cent functioning right kidney.
A medical council inquiry into the fitness to practise of Prof Corbally and a junior doctor on his team Sri Paran – who removed the wrong kidney – heard the child’s father Oliver Conroy even asked for “photographic evidence” to be checked as the child went into theatre. “I was getting a little bit frustrated that we weren’t getting a definitive answer,” he said.
The boy’s parents had previously asked a nurse and a different junior doctor to check on which side their son was to have surgery when he was admitted to hospital the night before. They also raised the issue with a nurse when they arrived in theatre and were “embarrassed” asking.
Mr Conroy said he told Dr Paran to check the X-rays before the operation and when Dr Paran came back and showed them the medical notes, which incorrectly stated the boy was for left-sided surgery, they consented to the operation.
They expected their son to be in theatre for a couple of hours and went to buy him toys. When they returned he was still in theatre and after four hours became concerned. Eventually, Prof Corbally approached them and said the child’s healthy kidney had wrongly been removed and apologised. He said they had tried to put it back in and had called a transplant team from Beaumont Hospital who advised it was best to take it out again. They had to give their consent for this having been advised “it just wouldn’t take”.
Ms Stewart said all along they believed Prof Corbally had carried out the surgery until Dr Paran came to them days later and explained he had performed the surgery and apologised. “We got very upset then”.
She said they were naive. They trusted the doctors.
While her son had “done much better than expected” and was now attending school and playing with friends she and the boy’s father “worry each day” about when he’s going to need dialysis and a transplant. “We are just living day by day.”
She said the family, who have two younger children, were pursuing a legal action against the hospital.
“The reason why we’re here today is so this will never happen to another child or family again . . . this can’t happen to another child,” she said. Prof Corbally is facing 15 allegations of professional misconduct.
Dr Paran faces 13 allegations of professional misconduct.