‘£100K PAYOUT FOR MY BOTCHED HIP OP’
WOMAN LEFT IN AGONY AFTER SURGERY WENT WRONG
A WOMAN who was left “hysterical” with pain after hip surgery went wrong has won a six-figure damages pay out.
Surgeons had to make three attempts to fix Golcar grandma of 15, Suzanne Harvey, 59.
But five years on from operations at Calderdale Royal Hospital in Halifax, she is still in crippling pain, needs the surgery doing again, and claims her knee will now need replacing due to errors with the hip surgery.
Ms Harvey’s nightmare began when her first hip replacement dislocated as she was being moved into her bed following the operation.
“I have never experienced pain like it,” she said. “Another patient said she will never forget the noise I made for the rest of her life – I was hysterical.
“I ended up having three operations and three general anaesthetics.”
After action by Hudgells Solicitors, Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust admitted liability and paid £100,000 in compensation to Ms Harvey.
She added: “I couldn’t walk properly for about six months and I needed help at home.
“The replacement was supposed to get me back on my feet but instead, I’m like a hermit and I only go out when my family takes me. I don’t feel safe going on my own. I’m so young at heart, but my body is in bits.
“I still have nightmares and flashbacks, and I wake up screaming about what the pain was like.
“I can walk now but I’m in constant pain and I’ll be on painkillers for the rest of my life.
“I feel fed up a lot and I feel like a prisoner because I can’t walk far.
“All I ever wanted from taking legal action was a genuine faceto-face apology, but I’ve never had one.
“I’ve felt like a number, not a patient, and £100,000 still isn’t an apology.”
Reports by independent medical experts said Ms Harvey could have expected to have regained reasonable hip function within five to six months and would not have suffered chronic post-surgical pain, as well as other health problems, had the initial operation been completed successfully.
They also said her right hip replacement would have had a normal 15-year lifespan, rather than the eight to 10-year lifespan her current hip has.
Tasmin White, of Hudgell Solicitors, represented Ms Harvey in the case.
She said: “It is completely unacceptable for such avoidable errors to be made.
“Put simply, this case was about the failure to ensure the hip replacement was done correctly the first time.”
Deputy chief executive and chief nurse at the trust, Brendan Brown, said: “We offer our sincere apologies to Ms Harvey for the problems she encountered with her hip replacement surgery. We have reached an out of court settlement and for this reason cannot comment any further.”