She was saved by an obstetrician and a urologist who, in the middle of the night, realized they didn't have a minute to lose. "Due to a macroscopic error," the medical examiner wrote in his report, "both ureters, the tubes that carry urine from the kidneys to the bladder, had been cut and then sealed off in the patient whose uterus had been removed. "A few hours after the operation, I began to have increasingly severe pain that became unbearable in the evening. They administered liquids but the catheter remained empty, they changed three in half an hour, in the end they realized that something was wrong: the emergency CT scan clarified to the radiologist what had happened," the woman said on the phone.
The lesion
It all happened at the Nostra Signora di Bonaria hospital in San Gavino Monreale, on November 2, two years ago, during an operation performed by a doctor from the Obstetrics and Gynecology department. The 50-year-old from Villasor, who turned to the lawyer Brunello Acquas to seek justice, was recognized as having a 12 percent disability and - through a settlement - compensation (decided by the ASL but not yet credited) of 40 thousand euros plus six thousand euros in legal fees.
The Chronicle
In the fall of 2022, due to the presence of a large myoma, the woman must undergo a hysterectomy for the total removal of the uterus. The operation was scheduled for November 2, the day she was admitted to the hospital in the morning and accompanied shortly after to the operating room where she will remain from 11:45 to 14:30. «The operation was performed in laparotomy, that is, with a cut similar to that of a cesarean with an open field of vision. An electric scalpel was used that cuts and seals, so they removed the mass but also cut and closed both ureters. Then, unaware, they sewed me up and I returned to the room with the catheter which, given the administration of liquids, should have filled up». Around 16:30 the pain became increasingly felt. «They gave me a diuretic in a rapid infusion, three liters of saline. And yet the bag remained empty while the pain in my right side was getting worse, it felt like it was going to explode. At 6:30 pm a doctor came up to see how I was and told me that the pain was due to the surgery and that was it." Things went on like this until late in the evening. "In the left ureter, in reality, there was a very small hole coming out, so when they reopened me they found 1,200 cc of urine in my abdomen, the other one was sealed and the kidney was suffering." The turning point came after the 10 pm check. "The midwife, after having the catheter changed three times and seeing that not a drop of urine was coming out, understood that something was wrong. They did a CT scan and the radiologist saw everything, the urologist arrived and they operated on me for another four hours. However, the “technical” damage remained also because in the previous cut and suture the valve that prevents urine from flowing back up was damaged and this caused me several infections».
