Woman Discovers Doctors Left Device "Size Of Dinner Plate" Inside Her 18 Months Ago During Delivery

• Auckland City Hospital is making global headlines for all the wrong reasons after medics from the facility were found culpable of medical negligence
• This is after it was discovered that its doctors forgot a surgical instrument called an Alexis retractor (AWR) inside a woman they helped deliver through Caesarian Section
• The discovery was made after the young woman who had endured 18 months of pain had an abdominal CT scan to find out what was happening

After suffering excruciating pain for 18 months after undergoing a caesarean section, a woman was shocked to learn that doctors forgot a foreign object inside her.

BBC News records that the surgical instrument named an Alexis retractor or AWR, is the size of a dinner plate and had been living inside her abdomen.

An AWR is a device used to hold back the edges of a wound during surgery, can retract incisions up to 17cm in diameter, and was not detectable during X-rays.

Breach of patient's code

This error led to the woman suffering chronic abdominal pain for one and a half years before the discovery was made during an abdominal CT scan.

The mistake came to light when the young woman who is in her 20s sought medical attention when the pain became unbearable.

Investigations into the case unearthed a horrifying reality; the instrument was left inside the New Zealand mother after she delivered at Auckland City Hospital.

It was eventually removed from her abdomen in 2021, ending her unprecedented visits to different hospitals due to pain, The Guardian adds.

Hospital apologised for error

Incidentally, a surgeon, a senior registrar, an instrument nurse, three circulating nurses, two anaesthetists, two anaesthetic technicians and a theatre midwife were all in theatre when the error occurred.

In the wake of the discovery, the Health and Disability Commissioner Morag McDowell accused the facility of breaching the code of patient rights.

“There is substantial precedent to infer that when a foreign object is left inside a patient during an operation, the care fell below the appropriate standard,” he said, calling it a ‘never’ event.”

The hospital apologised to the woman, adding that the case has resulted in improvements to their systems and processes, reducing the chance of such reoccurring.

Man seeks justice over wife's death

Elsewhere, a Nairobi man whose wife bled to death after delivering twins at Mama Lucy Hospital is seeking justice.

Robert Omondi was hopeful of raising his twin children together with his wife but her sudden death caused by medical negligence has dealt him a blow.

Maureen Anyango delivered twins at the Mama Lucy Hospital hours after they were referred from Kayole Hospital and nothing was okay afterwards.

Omondi noticed she was heavily bleeding and the twins' shawls had also soaked in blood and shortly after, blood started flowing back to the drip she had.

His efforts to get nurses to attend to his wife bore no fruits as none of them showed up until the situation became worse and Anyango was too weak.