Surgeon is fired after getting a hospital cleaner to help him carry out an AMPUTATION
Surgeon is discharged after getting a hospital cleaner to help him perform an AMPUTATION by holding patient’s leg down
- A public broadcaster reported that the cleaner had no medical experience
Officials at a hospital in West Germany have expressed regret after it emerged that one of their surgeons had hired a cleaner to assist with a toe amputation.
Public broadcaster SWR reported on Friday that the incident at Mainz University Hospital, which took place in 2020, did not lead to any complications for the patient, but the doctor has since been discharged.
The hospital’s director, Norbert Pfeiffer, said the surgeon mistakenly decided to proceed with the routine procedure even though no qualified assistant was available, SWR reported.
When the patient, who was under local anesthesia, became restless, the doctor asked a nearby cleaner to hold the man’s leg and pass surgical instruments, local newspaper Mainzer Allgemeine Zeitung reported. The newspaper reported that the cleaner had no medical experience.
The incident came to light after a hospital manager saw the cleaner — bloody gauze in hand — in the operating room, it reported.
Officials at a hospital in West Germany have expressed regret after it emerged that one of their surgeons had enlisted a cleaner to assist with a toe amputation
“This should never have happened,” the German news agency dpa quoted Pfeiffer as saying.
In January, a German doctor was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison for illegally clearing more than 4,000 people from wearing masks during the coronavirus pandemic.
SWR reported that a regional court in the southwestern town of Weinheim convicted the doctor of issuing certificates to people from all over Germany, most of whom she had never met or examined.
At the trial, she had argued that wearing masks is harmful to people’s health.
She was also given a three-year work ban and had to pay 28,000 euros (£25,000), the amount she had received for issuing the medical certificates.
Her office assistant was fined 2,700 euros (£2,400).