Royal Oldham Hospital has been ordered to pay a paediatric nurse compensation after a series of medical mistakes resulted in the amputation of one of her fingers.
Claire Heywood, 46, went to accident and emergency after she cut one of her fingers five years ago.
She had cut her hand on a glass lampshade and returned home after A&E staff bandaged her finger and was told the cut was not serious. Sadly, poor treatment resulted in her finger being amputated.
Mrs Heywood also had to take a year off work due to the pain.
Pennine Acute Trust management team has now agreed a five-figure compensation package with Mrs Heywood.
Some of the mistakes made include:
- Failure to treat a severed tendon
- The notes stated an X-ray had been done when in actuality it had not.
- Mrs Heywood was referred to a physiotherapist when she should have been referred to a hand surgeon.
- Mrs Heywood had to wait nine months for her operation. The long waiting time caused other problems to arise resulting in further surgery.
Mrs Heywood believes her finger could have been saved if she had been listened to by doctors as she told medical staff her tendon had been severed. Unfortunately, they did not realise this for sometime.
After she initially attended A&E she found a she could not bend her finger a few weeks later, and it became increasingly painful which resulted in her taking time off work.
In 2007 she went to her GP who gave her an urgent referral to hospital. Despite the urgency she was not seen for two months.
Following a delayed operation where a rod was inserted into her finger, Mrs Heywood was told the rod would have to be removed as it had become infected.
Subsequently Mrs Heywood made the decision to have her finger amputated.
She said: “I was in such extreme pain for so long, it was torturous. I felt an amputation was the only option left to me as it my situation had become so unbearable and was impacting on my home and working life.
“This was never about the money, nothing can make up for the hell I’ve gone through and we can’t turn back the clock but I hope that Pennine will learn lessons from my ordeal and put things right so this does not occur again.”
A trust spokesman said: “We have previously admitted that there were delays which led to Ms Heywood’s finger amputation. We apologise for the shortcomings.”
