Surgeon Who Left 16 Items in a Man's Body Sued for Malpractice

The news just broke that a surgeon working with a hospital in Germany will soon have to figure out a way of explaining in front of a court of law why it was that, while operating on an elderly man who simply needed a routine surgery for prostate cancer, he ended up leaving as many as 16 medical tools in his body.

Dirk Schroeder, who passed away last year at 74 years of age, used to say that, soon after having had the surgery, he found that his wounds had a rather difficult time healing. As well as this, he was experiencing extreme pain, which more often than not prevented him from finding a comfortable position in which to sit.

Interestingly enough, it took several weeks before it was decided that Dirk Schroeder should probably be taken back to the hospital so that doctors could look into what was bothering him.

Huffington Post says that the team of doctors who were asked to investigate what was causing this man's pain decided to perform a second surgery in order to have a look inside his body.

This led to their stumbling upon an impressive “collection” of pieces of medical equipment, made up of swabs, a roll of bandage, a compress, a needle and other similar objects.

In order to remove all of the 16 foreign items they found in Dirk's body, the doctors had to cut him open twice.

Despite his surviving these three surgeries, the man eventually died due to his cancer's spreading and causing several medical complications.

However, his family is seeking to get some compensation from the surgeon who left the 16 items in Dirk's body, and has filed a lawsuit against both him and the hospital he is working with. Thus, they wish to receive a total of ₤80,000 (€96,485 / $128,247) in damages.

“There has been gross negligence here which most probably had led to complications and possibly a quicker death,” the family's lawyer argued.

Presently, the hospital and the surgeon maintain that the medical equipment somehow made their way into Dirk's organism after the surgery was performed.