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Prostate Surgery Cancellation

Posted By INAJIFFY

"Prostate Surgery Cancellation"

About: Aberdeen Royal Infirmary / Urology (Bladder and Urinary problems)

(as the patient),

I am writing primarily to complain about the cancellation of my prostate surgery in November due to equipment not being cleaned.

A couple days prior to my appointment, the time was changed from 7am to 10am. I arrived at 10am, saw the nurse, anaesthetist and surgeon; had blood tests taken and was ready to go to surgery when the surgeon came to me at 2pm and told me they would have to cancel the operation since the necessary equipment had not been cleaned.

My partner had two needless round trips of 60 miles to take me in to hospital and collect me, costing £38 for diesel fuel.

I had also put my dog into kennels for 6 days whilst I had my surgery and recovery, costing £90 

I have had unnecessary stress getting ready mentally for this surgery, and now it's been re-booked for 3 weeks time, I've now got another 3 weeks of stress plus the cost of travel and kennels again costing £128.

I am a 70+ old pensioner who finds their pension only goes so far how am I supposed to get the money to pay for these expenses. 

All this on top of the fact that I have been waiting since January 2021 for the surgery, and since January 2022 when I had my pre-op assessment.

I am disgusted with the way I have been treated, the surgeon was most apologetic, they are the only person that has spoken to me about this, no other apology or recompense offered.  

 

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Responses

Response from Linda Oldroyd, Chief Nurse for Surgery, NHS Grampian 2 years ago
Linda Oldroyd
Chief Nurse for Surgery,
NHS Grampian

Submitted on 07/11/2022 at 16:17
Published on Care Opinion at 16:18

picture of Linda Oldroyd

Dear INAJIFFY

I was saddened to read of the problems you have encountered with our surgical services. It is very unusual to hear that any surgery had been cancelled for this reason. I would be very grateful if you could contact me so that I can look into the specifics of your case to understand what could have been done differently to prevent this from happening and also to prevent is from happening to someone else.

I apologise for this experience and hope there are no glitches with your rescheduled appointment.

Please email me linda.oldroyd@nhs.scot

Thank you.

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Response from Linda Oldroyd, Chief Nurse for Surgery, NHS Grampian 2 years ago
We are preparing to make a change
Linda Oldroyd
Chief Nurse for Surgery,
NHS Grampian

Submitted on 09/11/2022 at 14:49
Published on Care Opinion on 10/11/2022 at 21:47

picture of Linda Oldroyd

Dear INAJIFFY

Thank you for getting in touch via email.

I have spoken with the Unit Operational Manager for urology, and he was very aware of this incident. He had offered to speak with you, but the Consultant did not feel this was required. The Senior Manager, who covers CDU, is also aware and looking at ways to avoid this happening in the future.

We have recorded this as an adverse event on our Adverse Events database and we are conducting what we call a Level 2 review of the event. This is used to identify why something happened and what we can do to prevent it happening again. We will be looking at the decontamination process itself as well as our quality control checks. One of our nurses from Theatre 5, where the urology surgery takes place, has gone to CDU to demonstrate what is required in terms of the equipment.

I hope this reassures you that we have sight of this issue and are actively working to improve the situation. I understand that you are fed up with hearing apologies, but we are sorry that this has happened to you. It should not have happened to anyone.

In the meantime, we will send out a claims form for you to complete and return to us. Hopefully this will cover the expenses you incurred as a result of the very late cancellation of your surgery.

If I can be of any further assistance, please do get in touch.

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