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The following is issued on behalf of the Hospital Authority:
The spokesperson of North District Hospital (NDH) announces the following medical incident today (September 19):
North District Hospital confirmed this evening (September 19) that a patient had been inappropriately performed on a mastectomy operation.
A 36-year-old female patient was referred to our hospital for suspected left breast mass and attended the Surgery department.
On July 30, 2008, the patient was diagnosed primarily to have developed left breast mass according to the patient's clinical condition and the patient's private investigation result as well as the X-ray investigation results. In order to plan for appropriate treatment and further confirm the mass was a benign or any malignancy, she was arranged a left breast biopsy investigation on July 31, 2008. The biopsy investigation result indicated the malignancy of the patient¡¦s breast mass then doctor confirmed the patient's diagnosis and discussed with patient's relatives, left mastectomy of the patient would be performed.
The operation was successfully performed on August 26, 2008 in the hospital and the patient was discharged on September 2, 2008.
After the operation, the clinical Pathology Department has reviewed the patient's excisted breast tissue, the investigation result was not matched with the patient's initial tissue investigation result before the operation, then further repeated tissue investigations were performed from September 3 to September 11, it was finally confirmed that the excisted breast tissue has no malignancy identified, then DNA test on the patient's breast tissue before the operation was performed, the primary DNA test result on September 17 evening indicated one of the patient's malignant specimen was not belonged to the patient, and induced on inappropriate operation to have been performed.
The Clinical Pathology Department reported the incident to the Deputizing Hospital Chief Executive (DHCE) on September 18. The DHCE according to the HA Sentinel Event Policy initiated a contingency meeting with all the relevant departments to primarily investigate the incident, it was reported to the management of the Hospital Authority Head Office (HAHO) and the New Territories East Cluster. The hospital met with the family of the patient this morning for detail explanations of the incident, and expressed the most sincere apologies to the patient and her family. The hospital has commenced a thorough follow up on other patients' record, no any other patient was affected by the incident at this stage.
The New Territories East Cluster had set up an investigation team to follow up on the incident and the investigation report is expected to be completed in six to eight weeks. The investigation team will be chaired by Dr Ng Wing Fung, Chairman of HA Co-ordinating Committee in Pathology, with other members including Professor Ng Ho Keung, Chairman of Department of Anatomical & Cellular Pathology, CUHK; Dr Frances Mok, HA Chairman Co-ordinating Committee in Surgery; and Ms Becky Ho, Senior Nursing Officer (Patient Safety & Risk Management) of HA.
Following the incident, the hospital has immediately reviewed the relevant operational procedures and seriously notified the relevant departments and hospital staff to strictly follow the relevant procedures protocols and guidelines to avoid recurrence of similar incident in future.
Ends/Friday, September 19, 2008
Issued at HKT 20:56
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