£40,000 awarded after bowel surgery complications

In 2009 the Court approved a settlement of a claim brought by the widow of a man who died aged 61 years from bowel cancer claiming that his medical condition was negligence and failed to diagnosed bowel cancer.

Injury details

At the end of 2000 the deceased went to see a local doctor at his surgery complaining of abdominal pain.

He was given a drug for hyper-tension and he went back to see his doctor during that and the following year and received repeat prescriptions without any direct communication with the doctor himself.

The drug that he was prescribed was to relieve pain in irritable bowel syndrome but by August 2002 the deceased had suffered a significant deterioration and was then suffering from lower back pain, abdominal pain and constipation. He asked the doctor to send him for x-rays and the doctor refused.

Later that year he saw another doctor in the surgery and by January 2003 he was taken into hospital where a tumour was found and after surgery he underwent chemotherapy but nevertheless in July 2004 he passed away.

His widow instructed solicitors to bring a claim against the surgery and they were able to provide expert evidence that the doctor who had seen him had not properly considered the possibility of bowel cancer on the earlier consultations and that simply providing him with repeat prescriptions without seeing him was not the appropriate level of care that a doctor should provide.

The solicitors also obtained a report from a consultant who was of the opinion that had a diagnosis of the tumour been made earlier then if the appropriate surgery had then been carried out there would have been a good chance that the deceased would not have died when he did.

The claim settled out of Court and the widow received a total of £80,000.00 of which £40,000.00 was for the pain and suffering that the deceased had suffered during his lifetime.

Disclaimer

Case studies are for informational purposes only and aim to help prospective claimants understand the injury claim process. They are based on cases handled by Quittance panel solicitors or sourced from public court records.