Kidney failure caused by hysterectomy stitch

Immediately after the operation she began to suffer from sickness and diarrhoea and also experienced dizziness, blurred vision and severe left sided pain. Her blood pressure was also considerably higher than was normal and, despite the claimant having no history of high blood pressure, this was ignored. After multiple complaints about the level of pain she was in the claimant was finally given painkillers. The claimant remained in hospital for a period of 4 days before being discharged.

On the journey home the claimant experienced worsening pain and once at home symptoms including constant headaches, neck aches, hot flushes, vomiting, blurred vision, dizziness and stomach pains continued. These symptoms restricted the claimant’s mobility for approximately a month. After a brief period in which her condition appeared to improve in February 2007 the symptoms returned. A post operative appointment at the hospital failed to address her concerns and the claimant left feeling that she had been ignored.

The claimant returned to work due to her concerns over the safety of her position given the lengths of time that she had already had off work. She was in a difficult position because she simply could not afford to lose anymore money. When she was back at work she still suffered most of the same symptoms and really struggled to do her job.

In late March 2007 the claimant visited her GP due to the continuing severity of her symptoms. Her blood pressure was taken and was high and she was sent to hospital. The claimant’s sister took her to Accident and Emergency the same day. Due to the redness of her skin Meningitis was initially suspected and again the high blood pressure was ignored. The claimant felt like the hospital was unwilling to consider that the hysterectomy operation had been the cause of her symptoms. She was discharged the following day.

The claimant felt that she had no option but again to return to work as she was frightened of losing her job as she had had so much time off sick.

The claimant’s GP insisted on carrying out more tests in an attempt to find out what was wrong. He reported that he was concerned that there had been damage to her ureter at the time of the hysterectomy or that she was experiencing kidney stones and an urgent referral was made.

Further scans and X-rays in mid-May 2007 revealed that one of the claimant’s kidneys was not working. A subsequent exploratory operation confirmed that there had been an irreversible failure of the left kidney caused by a stitch made at the time of the hysterectomy operation. The claimant was diagnosed with renal hypertension and she was told the kidney had to be removed. The claimant had the operation to remove her kidney in July 2007.

Throughout the period during which her problems were undiagnosed the claimant was unable to look after herself or her children, she was unable to undertake any social activities and was unable to fulfil her employment. She also lost confidence and found the whole experience very distressing – particularly as she was so very ill initially and no one seemed to take her seriously, other than her own GP.