Surgeon sacked after mistakenly giving man a vasectomy during minor operation

Liverpool, England:  A surgeon who gave a man a vasectomy by mistake has been sacked with doctors admitting an attempt to reverse the blunder failed.

The horrific mistake happened when the man was undergoing a minor operation at Liverpool's Broadgreen Hospital earlier this year.

The hospital “apologised unreservedly” to the patient at the time - but it is now understood the man has been told a procedure to correct the error did not work.

This means that although he may still be able to have children through IVF he will not be able to have children naturally.

The urology department at Broadgreen Hospital has now admitted the vasectomy error was just one of five botched operations in twelve months, the Liverpool Echo reported.

The vasectomy incident and another mistake - believed to be a swab left inside someone - are being described by health chiefs as “never events” -medical mistakes that should never happen.

Ian Cohen, a clinical negligence lawyer, said the patient could be eligible for more than £100,000 in compensation but it would depend on how old he is and whether or not he has been left infertile.

On top of this the trust could have to cover legal fees.

Mr Cohen said: “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,

“The NHS LA have an objective that in cases where there’s a clear claim for compensation that it’s dealt with swiftly.

“If it was dealt with quickly the legal fees, both for the hospital and the person claiming, would be quite limited. The legal fees wouldn’t be much more than a couple of thousand.

“If the view is taken to defend the case the legal fees go up.”

Mr Cohen added that the age of the patient could also affect how bad the emotional impact of the blunder is.

He said: “If a 25-year-old who wants a family is told he won’t be able to father children it will be devastating.”

Another three errors in the department have been classed as “serious events”.

Hospital bosses say the blunders have been reported to NHS chiefs and that investigations are underway to establish how they happened.

Dr Peter Williams, medical director at Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “Our urology department is the biggest in Cheshire and Merseyside, caring for over 4,000 patients a year.

“The vast majority of feedback from these patients is overwhelmingly positive. We have excellent, highly regarded clinical teams who treat the most difficult urological cases, many of which are referred to us by other hospitals for our expertise and leading edge surgical techniques.

“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. 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.”