Was it FT that contributed to this error, or, TRYING to be
"world class"??
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S'PORE WOMAN UPSET OVER REMOVAL OF APPENDIX LATER FOUND TO BE
NORMAL
I paid $1,400 for operation I didn't need
But docs followed standard practice for those showing symptoms of
acute appendicitis
By Ng Wan Ching
October 31, 2006
SHE had severe tummy ache and her appendix was removed.
But Miss Gloria Lim, 26, continued to be in pain.
Miss Gloria Lim laments over her many hospital bills and for an
appendectomy she feels she did not need. -- CHONG JUN LIANG
She was told three weeks after her operation that it was not the
appendix which caused her symptoms.
She now needs to undergo more tests to find out what is wrong with
her.
Naturally, she is upset that she underwent an operation which she
felt was unnecessary.
RISK
But the doctors who treated her were following standard practice in
removing her appendix.
Her symptoms had indicated a high probability of acute
appendicitis.
In such cases, doctors go ahead and operate because diagnosis is
difficult, and there is the risk of a perforated appendix, which is
a medical emergency.
They quote international figures of 10 to 15 per cent of patients
who have been operated on and who turn out, in the end, to have a
normal appendix.
Miss Lim, a marketing executive, said she has already run up $1,400
in medical bills.
In an interview with The New Paper last week, she asked: 'Who will
refund the operation fees and hospital bills that I have
paid?'
Miss Lim started getting stomach cramps, diarrhoea and gastric pain
on 22 Sep.
After visiting a local clinic twice, she decided to go to the
A&E at Singapore General Hospital, on 25 Sep.
By the time she reached the hospital, it was past 8pm. She was
admitted after the doctors there examined her.
SGH surgeons operated on her at 6am the next day.
She stayed in the hospital for five days and was told she had acute
appendicitis.
'But the stomach cramps were still there,' she said.
'Each attack makes me go cold and sweat profusely in pain, scaring
my aged parents.'
In one of those attacks, she fainted at home, on 5 Oct.
'I went back to the hospital on 6 Oct. They had told me if there
was anything that did not feel right after the operation, I can go
back to the hospital for treatment,' she said.
Instead of immediate treatment, she was told she had to pay $80
before she could get a queue number. And she would have to wait
three hours.
Frustrated and in pain, she took a painkiller instead and went back
home to rest.
On 17 Oct, she visited the outpatient clinic. 'There was another
great surprise for me,' she said.
She saw a report stating that there was no inflammation of her
appendix but it was removed anyway.
'Instead, the doctors think it might be something else such as
parasites or a virus,' she said.
'Yet no further investigations were carried out and I was sent home
despite my complaints of abdominal pain.'
INSURANCE
She said she was told on that day by a doctor that 'it is still
unknown to them what caused the pain'.
She felt the surgery had been in vain.
Her abdominal area remains tender and the pain comes and
goes.
'For that, I am paying almost $1,400 and more bills are coming my
way,' she said.
Although she has insurance, she can claim hospitalisation bills
only when they go above $2,000. She has to pay the first $2,000
herself.
As a marketing executive on probation, she gets paid only when she
goes to work and she has no medical benefits. The hospital bills
were paid partly from her Medisave.
'The days spent in the hospital and the medical leave after that
caused me to lose income and suffer pain,' she said.
She said that each day she works, she gets $130.
But because of the hospital stay and the two-week MC, she missed
out on 15 days of work adding up to $1,950.
'It may not be a lot of money for the doctors working there. But to
me, it means a lot,' she said.
TEST RESULTS
On 20 Oct, after The New Paper contacted SGH, Miss Lim went to the
hospital again to meet a doctor.
'That day, the doctor showed me that the surgeon wrote on his notes
that my appendix looked inflamed. It was sent for tests. I found
out that the hospital received the test results on 30 Sep that
there was nothing wrong with my appendix,' she said.
She wants to know why, until 17 Oct, nobody had called to tell her
that she did not have appendicitis.
'From 30 Sep to 17 Oct, something could have happened to me and
nobody would have known what happened because my family would have
gone to the hospital and told doctors that I had just undergone
appendix surgery. They would all go away thinking it's just surgery
pain,' she said.
SGH did not say why it took so long to tell Miss Lim that she did
not have appendicitis.
'Now I am suffering double pain, from the surgical wound and from
my original abdominal cramps for which nobody knows the reason,'
she said.
She has decided to go to KK Women's and Children's Hospital to see
if the doctors there can sort out what is wrong with her.
