A Frenchwoman is suing a surgeon after she “gave birth" to a latex glove and five compresses which he allegedly "forgot" in her womb during an operation.
The 48-year-old woman, who has not been named, was operated on at a private clinic in Marseille, southern France, after doctors carried out an endometrial-ablation – supposedly a less invasive way to stop periods than a hysterectomy.
Doctors told her after the operation, last April, that “everything had gone well”.
However, she was soon suffering from excruciating pain, couldn’t sleep, was sick and found it hard to urinate.
“I had the feeling someone was stabbing me with a knife in the belly but I thought it was linked to the operation,” she told Le Parisien. “I naturally talked about it with nurses and the surgeon. He told me that I was a lightweight and prescribed pain killers without conducting any extra examinations.”
She went home, but the pain continued.
“After three days of atrocious pain in the lower stomach, I started having extremely strong contractions and finally expelled a glove and five compresses,” she said. The contraction lasted four hours and left her "in a pool of blood".
When she realised the cause of her misery, she went straight back to the clinic to confront the surgeon, and was shocked at his allegedly flippant reaction when he said: "If you’re not happy, go ahead and contact my insurance company. I’m very well insured."
“He instantly played down the seriousness of what I’d been through and placed the blame on the nurses saying he delegated a lot of things in the operating theatre. He didn’t apologise," she said.
After the ordeal, the woman was unable to work for several months, continues to suffer from chronic urinary tract infections and requires psychological counselling.
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Above all, she said she was shocked at the doctor’s high-handed attitude.
“He was very disdainful and took the whole thing with a pinch of salt. Everyone makes mistakes, but this attitude drove me to file a legal complaint,” she said.
"Despite my suffering, I was lucky: I could have got septicemia and died. I wouldn’t like it to happen to anyone else," she said.
The case continues.