New Zealand woman's "plate size" surgical instrument left in the abdomen after cesarean section
A report released by an official from the New Zealand Ministry of Health on the 4th revealed that a woman had left a plate sized surgical instrument in her abdominal cavity after undergoing a cesarean section. The official determined that the medical institution involved had infringed on the rights and interests of patients.
According to a report cited by CNN, a woman in her twenties underwent a cesarean section at the Oakland City Hospital in 2020. For 18 months after surgery, she suffered from chronic pain and underwent multiple examinations including X-ray scans, but no abnormalities were found. It wasn't until 2021, when she was in an emergency department at the Auckland City Hospital due to unbearable pain, that a CT scan revealed an incision retraction device in her abdominal cavity, and she underwent surgery to remove it.
Incision distractors are used in surgical procedures to fix and retract skin tissue, with a diameter of up to 17 centimeters. Due to its plastic material, this device cannot be detected through X-ray scanning or other methods.
The woman subsequently filed a complaint with the relevant authorities regarding this incident. Morag McDowell, an official in charge of health and disability affairs in the New Zealand Department of Health, wrote in a report that hospitals do not include incision retracters in their preoperative and postoperative surgical instrument inventory, and no medical staff involved can explain why the oversized incision retracter was left in the abdominal cavity.
McDowell believed that this incident "should never have happened". The medical services provided by the Auckland Regional Health Commission, which is responsible for operating this hospital, are "significantly below appropriate standards" and have caused women to "suffer long-term pain". A written apology must be issued to the women. In addition, the committee may need to take further improvement measures.
The Auckland Regional Health Commission has previously conducted a self-examination on this incident, but the relevant solutions have been limited, such as the introduction of new surgical instrument inventory rules. Mike Sheppard, the head of surgical affairs at the committee, later apologized in a media statement for what happened to the woman and became aware of the impact it had on her and her family.