Medical error confines woman to wheelchair

Posted: February 5, 2013

Posted in: Medical Negligence 

A 35-year-old woman has been awarded compensation thought to be worth several million pounds after a medical error left her paralysed, reports the Birmingham Mail.

Hazel Spence had undergone surgery at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham to remove a benign cyst from between her shoulder blades.

The operation was successful, but two days later a junior doctor thought that a drain left in her back to drain fluid was blocked, and attempted to flush it out. This caused damage to her spinal cord, and Ms Spence was left paralysed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair.

Speaking to the Birmingham Mail, a spokesperson for the NHS Trust said, ‘‘We wish Ms Spence and her family well for the future and hope that the settlement reached will provide her with the care and assistance she needs.”

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