Short-sighted surgeon struck off after taking out wrong organ
A SURGEON who removed a woman’s ovary instead of her appendix because of his poor eyesight was struck off yesterday.
Dr Lawal Haruna, 59, carried out three botched operations before colleagues blew the whistle on his incompetence, a disciplinary tribunal heard.
He described them as ‘trifling errors’, even though the NHS calls them ‘never events’ as they should never happen.
The hearing of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Panel was told that the incidents occurred when Haruna was working for the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Trust, which oversees six hospitals.
In September 2013, a male patient named only as Patient A was diagnosed with suspected appendicitis and booked in for emergency surgery. But Haruna failed to identify his appendix or ask for help from colleagues.
Instead he ploughed on with the operation and removed a pad of fat from the man’s abdomen instead.
Eighteen months later, a woman, Patient B, who was also admitted with appendicitis, had an ovary and fallopian tube removed by Haruna during an open appendectomy. He left the appendix where it was and the woman later had to be undergo further surgery to have it removed.
In August the same year, a second woman, Patient C, was referred to him to have a lump removed but Haruna failed to identify the lesion and removed a skin growth instead.
The surgeon, who represented himself, told the tribunal he had ‘poor vision’ at the time he carried out the surgery and claimed it would be ‘harsh’ to strike him off.
After apologising to the patients, he said: ‘I didn’t experience operative difficulties in removing whatever I removed. It was only later I realised it was not the appropriate part. The operation itself, the technicality, was fine but the wrong specimen was removed.
‘I have performed hundreds of appendectomies – this was due to lapse of judgment.’
But an expert witness, Dr Michael Zeigerman, said Haruna had a duty to stop operating if his vision was impaired.
‘If you feel you are not capable for any reason then you should not perform the procedure,’ he said.
‘Your responsibility is to your patient and if you feel impaired you should seek help. Sometimes your visibility does get a bit blurred
‘It should never, ever happen’
and you stop and go for a cup of tea. You don’t just carry on.
‘It makes it stranger that somebody with that experience would mistake the appendix for a pad of fat in one case and the fallopian tube in another.’
Dr Zeigerman added: ‘A never event is something that should never, ever happen. It’s so serious the Health Secretary has every one of them written in his office – and we have three of them here.’
Haruna was found guilty of professional misconduct and struck off the medical register.
Clare Sharp, chairman of the hearing in Manchester, told the surgeon his actions had been reckless. ‘Whilst you have apologised to the patients, you showed a lack of empathy for them, as well as for the serious consequences of your failings,’ she said.
‘Had Patient B been of childbearing age, your removal of a fallopian tube and ovary could have been potentially life-changing for her, but you showed no recognition of these potential consequences.’
She said the tribunal had concluded that there was a continuing risk to patients.