Bladder tear undetected for two weeks
Maddy was on her way home from work when she was involved in a road traffic accident and was admitted to hospital.
Upon arrival at A&E, Maddy was given morphine and complained of pain in her head, leg and abdomen. She began vomiting blood and Maddy's mother asked a doctor about the possibility that she may have suffered internal damage but this notion was dismissed.
Maddy was not passing any urine and a catheter had to be fitted to get a sample for analysis. The pain in her abdomen continued and a CT scan revealed that she had a blood clot but again the doctors stated that she did not have any internal organ damage.
Maddy's abdominal pain and sickness continued and she began passing very small amounts of blood stained urine so another catheter was fitted.
Two weeks after being admitted into hospital, doctors noticed signs of internal infection and a cystogram was carried out. The cystogram revealed a tear in Maddy’s bladder which was leaking urine and the following day Maddy was taken to surgery to repair the damage. A lot of infection was found due to the length of time it had taken for the tear to be located and two weeks later Maddy had to have a further operation as the initial operation had failed. Numerous blood clots and infection were found again and the bladder tissue was extremely thin making the procedure difficult to carry out.
Maddy was not discharged from hospital until six weeks after the accident. The tear is still not completely healed but another operation would be difficult due to the amount of infection so doctors are waiting to see whether the tear heals itself. Expert evidence suggests that the tear would have been easily operable and Maddy would have made a good recovery had the tear been noticed earlier.
Maddy pursued a claim against the local NHS Trust and received £15,000 in compensation with representation from medical negligence solicitor, Luke Daniels.
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