Doctors ‘ignored’ stroke victim
A man has been left unable to see his own hand. Josh Fagan reports.
A man who lost the sight in one eye after suffering a stroke says he was turned away by a doctor because he was doing ‘‘urgent’’ paperwork.
James Cardozo, 64, said he struck with a severe headache and felt ‘‘a bit wobbly’’ while out walking near his home in west Auckland on Thursday, July 21.
He rang a friend, who is a doctor, and described how he was feeling and his was advised to seek medical treatment.
Cardozo went to the Mt Roskill Medical and Surgical Centre and spoke to his regular GP at the entrance of the clinic, but the doctor told him he was busy doing paperwork and told him to see the on-duty doctor.
The nurse at reception wrote down his symptoms and took some tests, including blood pressure, but he had to wait for more than an hour before a doctor could see him.
Tests revealed he had poor peripheral vision and his verbal responses were a bit slow and incoherent, so the doctor told him to go straight to Auckland City Hospital.
Cardozo had to wait another half an hour at the hospital’s emergency department reception before being seen. He was in hospital for five days, suffering ongoing headaches and lost three quarters of the vision in his right eye, which is likely to be permanent.
Cardozo is unlikely to be able to do manual work again.
He said every minute was critical in diagnosing a stroke.
‘‘I don’t want to blame the doctors, I just want to see the procedure improve for the next patient,’’ he said.
‘‘I feel like there needs to be better ways of assessing strokes from the moment that you arrive. In my case it was very difficult to detect, but there should be more training in working out that someone is having a stroke.’’
Cardozo said he had a meeting with Mt Roskill Medical staff on
I don’t want to blame the doctors I just want to see the procedure improve.
Friday and said he did not want to take his concerns any further.
Instead he said he wanted to focus on highlighting awareness around identifying stroke symptoms. ’’For me it’s done and dusted. But in the future I don’t want these things to happen to anyone else.’’
The GP who spoke to Cardozo outside the centre confirmed he had been there but said he was not on duty at the time.
There are about 9,000 stroke cases in New Zealand each year and the Stroke Foundation of New Zealand said there was a concerning lack of awareness and understanding of stroke signs.
A new campaign was launched in June called the FAST response, designed to help people remember the main three signs of stroke: face, arms, speech, and the T for Time to call 111.