Routine operation kills “extremely active” grandmother after doctor’s blunder

The U.K. National Health Service is facing a lawsuit from the devastated family of a woman who died after a botched routine operation.

The NHS is the country’s socialized, government-run healthcare delivery system.

In a horrific scenario, doctors reportedly inserted a replacement heart valve upside down into great grandmother Sheila Hynes, 71, who suffered massive internal bleeding on the operating table.

A second operation to restore her heart function reportedly was unsuccessful, and she tragically died in the intensive care unit a week later after never regaining consciousness.

“Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has admitted the error,” the BBC reported, although the family claims the hospital patronized and demeaned them in a series of sit-downs with management.

A sympathetic nurse advised the family to leave “no stone unturned’ in the court case.

The surgeon in question still works at the hospital and has apparently yet to be subjected to discipline, however. While expressing condolences to the family, the NHS facility indicated that it was unable to comment further because of a pending inquest into the heart valve surgical procedure gone horribly wrong.

Mrs. Hynes, a widow described as extremely active and the picture of health, leaves behind seven grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren, and was assured that the operation, among the most common performed by NHS doctors, “would improve her breathing and circulation,” the Daily Mail noted.

About a week before the operation, she had returned from a trip to Tenerife in the Canary Islands with family members, including her (now deceased) sister who sadly had just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Hospital officials reportedly waited three days before informing the Hynes family of complications in the operation.

The alleged and/or apparent malpractice occurred in April 2015, but is just now emerging in the U.K. media. Said the family lawyer, “This is an absolutely shocking case…The heart valve was placed in an inverted manner, preventing the blood from being able to flow out of the heart as it should, there was therefore distension and tearing of the left ventricle,” the Independent of London detailed.

The attorney added that the grievous error was apparently discovered by another doctor rather than the attending surgeon, and that she plans to pursue legal action under the country’s Human Rights Act.

Disturbingly, the NHS has a subpar safety record, according to the Daily Mail. “[T]here are around six so-called ‘never events’ every week. These potentially fatal mistakes include removing kidneys instead of ovaries and leaving scalpels inside patients.” Never events are medical mistakes so egregious that they should never happen in any hospital.

The NHS was responsible for 1,000-plus serious medical mistakes in the 2012-2015 time frame, Natural News reported about a year ago.

This tragic situation with Mrs. Hynes (and other patients injured in British hospitals) should — but won’t — serve as a cautionary note for the left in America, including Bernie Sanders and his disciples, who favor a NHS-style single-payer system that would provide so-called universal healthcare “for free.”

In addition to errors in treatment methods, the financially struggling NHS is fraught with rationed care and long waiting lists and a culture of inefficiency, indifference, and waste. Once held up as a shining example of how a rich, Western nation can provide socialized, medicine, the National Health Service in Britain is deteriorating, and quickly, Natural News explained about a year ago. While there appears to be a shortage of doctors and nurses especially given the massive, caseload, NHS presides over a bloated bureaucracy of non-medical paper shufflers.

Yet for Democrats in the U.S., the endgame for the failed Obamacare program is or was presumably a 100-percent government takeover similar to what is in play in Britain. As part of the pending Obamacare repeal and replace effort, it remains to be seen if the Republicans can get their act together and restore free-market principles to America’s healthcare system. (RELATED: Read more about regulatory overreach at BigGovernment.news.)

“My life has been destroyed by what happened to my mother,” said Sheila Hynes’ daughter Jan Hopper said.

Sources:

BBC.com

DailyMail.co.uk

Independent.co.uk