Vietnamese surgeon suspended after operating on boy’s wrong arm
A Vietnamese surgeon accidentally operated on the wrong arm of a 6-year-old boy. Pic: Flickr
Everyone makes mistakes, but some mistakes are costlier than others. One surgeon in northern Vietnam found this out the hard way when he accidentally operated on the wrong arm of a six-year-old boy.
The surgeon, from a hospital in the Nghe An Province, was meant to remove the metal rods inside the child’s wrist which were placed there after he broke it in February.
On June 17, the surgeon, identified only as Dr Tuan, reportedly did not “double-check” which arm he was meant to operate – thus leading to him opening up the wrong one and having to stitch the boy back up before moving on to the correct wrist.
According to Thanh Nien News, the boy’s parents were aghast when they saw that their son had bandages on both his wrists.
The vice director of the hospital, Pham Van Dung, admitted that the mistake indeed took place and said the hospital would reimburse the boy’s parents for any extra cost incurred. The boy was brought to the Viet Duc Hospital in Hanoi for a second examination.
Dr Tuan has been suspended, and further punishments will be considered for him and his surgical team following a full investigation into the mistake.
The Health Department of Nghe An Province has also been asked to look into the incident, as requested by Vietnam’s ministry of health.
In August 2015, a similar accident occurred in the Vinh Long Province of southern Vietnam, where Dr Bui Vinh Phuc operated on the wrong leg of a six-year-old boy.
