Hospital cancels leg amputation surgery – twice Former soldier in ‘unbearable’ pain waiting for op:
A SOLDIER who suffered devastating injuries in Iraq has criticised her community hospital for twice cancelling an operation to amputate part of her right leg.
Sam Bowen, who is paralysed below her right knee, said the pain in her right leg was becoming too unbearable to manage.
The Mountain Ash resident said it would be a “relief ” to have the leg removed from the right knee downwards and would put an end to her constant medication.
But she says staff at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital, near Llantrisant, have been forced to cancel the procedure twice, once due to a lack of beds and once because staff were tied up with emergency surgery.
“This is not an everyday operation like having your tonsils out. This is something that’s completely life-changing for me,” she said.
“The doses of morphine I’ve been on have been getting higher and higher and it’s left me unable to sleep and I struggle to eat.
“I just want to live a pain-free life. Is that too much to ask for?”
Sam was paralysed below her right knee when 50 rockets rained down on her Army base camp during a surprise mortar attack in Iraq in 2006.
One of the rockets struck a wall in the room where Sam was asleep, causing razor-sharp shrapnel to slice into her right leg and back.
The 30-year-old almost bled to death when an artery in her right leg was severed in the attack, but an emergency blood transfusion operation saved her life.
Despite everything she endure she earned the opportunity to represent Great Britain in the Paralympics in 2012 as part of the sitting volleyball squad.
But now, due to the pain she’s experienced, she has had to give up the sport.
“I cannot function properly any more and some days I struggle to leave the house,” she said.
“I’ve also looking after my seven-year-daughter who I fostered. She has a lot of complex needs and she doesn’t leave my side.
“I have to keep her in a regular routine.”
Sam said she found out about the first operation cancellation as she was on her way to the hospital.
“I called the hospital to tell them I’d be arriving late because there had been some sort of car accident,” Sam added.
“But they told me they’d cancelled it because there wasn’t a bed for me.
“I had a bag already packed and I’d put my wheelchair in the car. I just broke down.”
She said the hospital then contacted her to tell her the rescheduled appointment also had to be postponed because the surgeons had been called into an emergency operation.
She is now due to have the operation on Tuesday, January 24.
A spokeswoman for Cwm Taf University Health Board said it can- not comment on individual cases.
She said: “Similar to other health boards in Wales, we have been under considerable pressure over recent weeks.
“Regrettably some elective operations needed to be cancelled but will be rescheduled as soon as possible.
“Our staff continue to work extremely hard and are committed to providing a high quality of care to our patients.”