Victim of a medical error, an octogenarian has lost almost all of his sight. Nevertheless, this medical error would have saved his life!
A bad for a good ? The story of Gaston, the victim of an incredible medical error, shakes up legal proceedings. In 2011, the octogenarian, hard of hearing, had to undergo a benign eyelid operation at the Chénieux clinic in Limoges. In the waiting room of the clinic and thinking he heard his name, the man had taken the place of another patient, and had therefore had the operation done for the wrong reason. The medical staff had not noticed the error and had performed an eye operation: a vitrectomy, an ablation of the vitreous body. And some time after the surgery, Gaston gradually lost his sight, until today suffering from almost total blindness. The man, worried, took legal action. But for the experts, who are unanimous, his medical error actually turned out to be miraculous.
Saved from a pulmonary embolism
The “unnecessary” operation would in fact have saved the life of the octogenarian. On the operating table, the man was the victim of a pulmonary embolism, and it was the anesthetist who realized it. The man was taken care of in record time, and escaped the tragedy. For the experts, if the octogenarian had suffered the initial operation on his eyelid, no doctor or nurse could have detected the pulmonary embolism.
A consequence of his AMD, for the experts
To decide on the patient’s medical error, experts from the regional commission for conciliation and compensation for medical accidents (CRCI) had been seized. And they were formal: the octogenarian’s blindness was only due to the evolution of his AMD – age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of visual impairment in people over 50 years old. Indeed, as the experts pointed out, four years before the operation, he had been diagnosed with AMD. But the octogenarian and his lawyer, Me Plas, have not abdicated. For them, progressive blindness was and still is only the consequence of a “failed” operation. The octogenarian asks this Wednesday for a second opinion. Justice will have to render its verdict on July 13.
.
