Let's Play Operation!

doctor links to original article

(Hürriyet Newspaper, 23 June 2012)

Suna Yazııltaş (42), who lives in Gaziosmanpaşa, Istanbul,
went to Okmeydanı Training and Research Hospital two
years ago because of increasing pain. An ultrasound test
found a benign tumor in her left kidney. Yazılıtaş was checked
every six months but when the pain increased again she
returned to the hospital. Without another untrasound test
being conducted Yazılıtaş was told that an operation was
urgently necessary but that it would be done with the
laproscopic technique, meaning she would keep her kidney
and would be released from the hospital the same day.

On 7 September 2011 Yazılıtaş had an operation during which
a vein in her right leg was cut, resulting in a significant loss of
blood. A heart surgeon was called in during the operation and
Yazılıtaş was given more than 20 bags of blood. Yet although
just the benign tumor needed to be removed her entire left
kidney was taken out.

Yazılıtaş stayed in intensive care for 15 days and spent another
35 days in the hospital recovering. Whereas there was only
supposed to have been a small incision made in her stomach,
in fact, the cut was 30 centimeters and done improperly,
resulting in a hernia. When this happened Yazılıtaş had her
lawyer, Özal Sayan, file a suit in Istanbul's Second Administra-
tive Court, asking for 170,000TL in compensation for lifelong
disability and medicine expenses.

Another scandal associated with Yazılıtaş's operation emerged
seven months later when a foreign object was discovered in
Yazılıtaş's stomach, which swelled up making it impossible for
her to move.  Yazılıtaş had gone to visit relatives and when her
pain increased she was operated on at Konya Training and
Research Hospital on 27 April. Five forgotten pieces of gauze
were found during the operation.

V.G., the doctor Yazılıtaş accused of malpractice, stated that
nothing went wrong during the operation. He said that 'this
patient has been under observation for a year and a half. It
wasn't an unnecessary operation. There was a benign tumor
in the kidney. She herself said 'take my kidney' because of
the pain. I don't know anything about the gauze.'

Yazılıtaş stated that 'the forgotten pieces of guaze in my
stomach formed a mass of 11 centimeters. It was like I was
8 or 9 months pregnant. I don't know how I didn't die.'