One retired paramedic finally got more than a ‘sorry, mate’ from the NHS, after he received more than £1 million in personal injury compensation for a surgery that left him severely disabled after a botched brain surgery.
John Tunney, a sixty three year old pensioner from the West Midlands, had been undergoing a surgical procedure in order to biopsy his pituitary gland when surgeons from Coventry’s Walsgrave Hospital removed a healthy part of his brain by mistake. Mr Tunney had been suffering from problems suspected to be linked to his thyroid, which led to the necessity of a biopsy, medical experts remarked.
Mr Tunney was left severely disabled after the botched surgery and in need of the kind of care that is both expensive and exhausting, as the surgery caused a massive brain haemorrhage that did even more damage. Nearly helpless without the assistance of family members, the disabled man made a medical negligence claim against the NHS Trust for the area after it came to light that there wasn’t any reason to open up his brain in the first place, as it turns out that medical staff neglected to carefully check one of Mr Tunney’s earlier blood tests.
Instead, the retired paramedic had been suffering from a condition called prolactinoma, easily treated with medication and completely benign, according to the blood test’s results. The NHS Trust awarded Mr Tunney compensation in excess of seven figures after admitting liability.
Pamela, Mr Tunney’s wife, was understandably outraged upon discovering this little tidbit of information, as she said in a recent interview. It was bad enough that surgeons completely bungled the procedure in the first place, she added.