Retained Surgical Items Are Surprisingly Common

Medical professionals call it a “Never Event” because it’s a preventable error that should never happen, yet a research study estimated that as many as one in every 1,000 to 1,500 surgeries involving open body cavities result in a surgical item left behind. Despite the protocols in place to prevent this “Never Event,” including the requirement to count all surgical items before and after every surgery, some patients experience serious health implications, catastrophic conditions, and death due to foreign objects left behind after surgery.

What Types of Objects Are Left Behind After Surgery?

Surgeries require a multitude of medical tools and implements, all of which medical standards require surgical teams to inventory before and after surgery to ensure that no object is retained inside the patient’s body before the closing. However, failure to adhere to this protocol results in an alarming number of patients learning that their ongoing or worsening symptoms are the result of an item left inside them after surgery. Surgical sponges are the most common retained surgical item, however, patients worldwide have experienced instances of items such as the following left behind:

• Sponges
• Gauze
• Cotton swabs
• Clamps
• Forceps
• Tweezers
• Scissors
• Gloves
• Needles
• Scalpels
• Retractors
• Towels
• Surgical masks
• Catheters

When surgeons and their medical teams leave implements behind, it poses an extreme danger to the patient.

What Happens When Surgical Items Are Retained In a Body Cavity?

The body reacts in a variety of ways to foreign objects left behind, many of which result in pain and worsened medical conditions. Some left-behind objects result in deadly infections and sepsis. In some instances, sharp tools cause internal bleeding and organ damage. Soft items left behind such as sponges, gauze, and surgical towels may adhere to body organs. Patients have experienced severe adverse health consequences and wrongful death.

When a patient suffers illness, injury, or death due to a surgical error such as a retained object, the surgeon, surgical team, and/or hospital is liable for the damages to the victim or their family members.

Real-Life Examples of Retained Surgical Items

Learning that a surgeon’s egregious error caused pain, infection, and deadly complications is traumatic for victims and their families, yet an alarming number of these negligent events occur each year including the following real-life examples:

• A woman complaining of pain and bloating learned that two surgical sponges had been left in her abdomen for six years following her C-section delivery and had become attached to her stomach and colon
• A patient in California suffered septic shock and a stroke due to two surgical clamps left inside him after surgery
• A patient died from an infection after a sponge was left inside their brain after surgery
• After cancer surgery, a woman’s medical team diagnosed her with complications from a surgical sponge left behind, beginning a year-long hospital stay due to infection and other complications that prevented her from receiving life-saving chemotherapy treatment for her cancer, ending in her death

When patients turn to their doctors for medical care, they have a right to treatment that meets the accepted standards of the medical community. When a medical provider breaches these standards and the result is serious harm or death, the patient deserves compensation.

Compensation for Retained Surgical Items

Although financial compensation from a malpractice lawsuit does not erase the harm caused by a retained surgical item, it opens the door for the best possible corrective medical care and provides victims with a sense of justice for their injury caused by a negligent surgical team. Patients and their families who suffer from preventable injuries that wouldn’t occur if medical providers followed proper protocols deserve financial accountability. Contact the Phoenix medical malpractice lawyers at Kapp & Roberts to understand your legal rights and options if you were a victim of retained surgical items.