57,000 X-rays not reviewed by consultant at Tallaght

OutlawPete

I said it before on threads but all these radiology scandals are the tip of the iceberg.

My own father was given the all clear and sent home to take anti-biotics for a chest infection after xrays only to be rushed into hospital three weeks later with cancer so far advanced he was dead within weeks.

It's beyond a scandal now, something needs to be done to stop this happening again and again.

More than 57,000 X-rays taken at Tallaght Hospital in Dublin between 2005 and the end of 2009 were not reviewed by a consultant radiologist.

The hospital says that to its deep regret, two patients had a delayed diagnosis as a result.

One died last summer and another is undergoing treatment for cancer.
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Tallaght Hospital CEO designate Professor Kevin Conlon said he was 'stunned' to learn of the problem when he was appointed on 14 December last year and was only informed today of the case of the patient who died.

He said the X-rays would have been reviewed at the time by a non-radiologist, most likely another clinician but this was not acceptable.

In December, extra staff were appointed to clear the radiology backlog and to date, 34,752 of the 57,921 X-rays have now been reviewed and reports finished.

The hospital hopes to have the 23,169 remaining X-rays reviewed by May. The X-rays were for various tests including cancer, heart checks and orthopaedics.

The hospital says the HSE was informed of the problem in December.
Prof Conlon said what had happened was totally unacceptable and arose from systemic and process failures.

Source

alwaysadub

I was just watching that on RTE.
i don't trust hospitals at all anymore
Im waiting on test results back(not from Tallaght thank god) but i don't think i'll be satisfied with the results either way
You could understand a couple slipping through the cracks but 57,000???
Disgraceful

mikom

Outlaw, sorry to hear about your father.

super_furry

And yet they want to close St Lukes. Probably the best cancer facility in the country with some of the most hardworking, compasionate and tallented people working there.

OutlawPete

mikom wrote: »

Outlaw, sorry to hear about your father.

Thanks, it was 2004 and in the hospital he cried and said that one day I should get the hospital records and prove they fcuked up his tests. I have tried but it's a stone wall to try and overcome.

I was with him the day he received the all after the xrays and told he was 100% and when my Dad said that he felt weaker than usual (he played golf) the smart a*** consultant just said: "Well now Mr *****, your getting on a bit and a 66 you're not going to feel like a 25 year old.." :rolleyes:

Given anti-biotics and I watched him disintegrate over three weeks and I begged him ever day to go back and get a second opinion as he was losing so much weight but he was the type to not like fuss and had such respect for consultants that he wouldn't dare doubt them.

He became so weak that he couldn't walk and so was rushed into hospital were xRays showed his cancer was so far advanced that there was nothing they could do for him.

tallus

Sorry to hear about your father OP. It's a bloody shame that anybody trusted with the health and wellbeing of individuals could be so reckless.
Personally I think the consultant should be given a custodial sentence if it has been proven that even one person suffered because of his/her negligence.

Sulmac

Is anyone surprised, honestly?

I actually find disheartening that stuff like this doesn't shock me any more.

Tallaght Hospital, the HSE, Mary Harney and the Government should hang their heads in same - though I'm sure they'll all find their own way to weasel out of it.

Also, OutlawPete, what happened to your father is beyond excuse, my sympathies to you and your family.

xw2lj9uspm1eyh

Jesus my mum got a bone marrow test today and it's getting sent to Tallaght to be examined .

Son Of A Vidic

No level of HSE incompetence could possibly shock me and yet again Mary Harney has something to be proud of.

Bazzy

I got blood tests in tallaght hospital last August.

Got a phone call back Hello Mr Surname we were just looking through your blood tests your aware your pregnant.

Tallaght Hospital STAY AWAY

Töpher

Bazzy wrote: »

I got blood tests in tallaght hospital last August.

Got a phone call back Hello Mr Surname we were just looking through your blood tests your aware your pregnant.

Tallaght Hospital STAY AWAY

Clowns, did they not realise that you'd probably have delivered by now? :eek:

Bazzy

I have a rather deep voice as well it wasn't funny it was actually scary it really frightened me to think they could get something SOO wrong

IvySlayer

Sorry to hear about your Dad, Pete.

This is a momumental screw up and heads have to roll for this.

neil_18_

Its disgusting, it really is. I'm shocked... You literally put your life in their hands, you trust them...

Sofiztikated

Jaysus, Pete, sorry to hear about your father. At least you don't seem to be "bitter" about it, I know I'd be like a man possessed!

This has me worried now, I'm due to attend Tallaght for the first time now in May, first check up in years, since attending Crumlin.

Never knew Tallaght was in the ****s like this.

57,000! how in the hell do you not check 57,000. Thats 14250 a year. Thats 39 a day. I'm not accounting for the leap year though, maybe that'll make a difference.

57,000! Bloody hell.

Mrmoe

That news is extremely troubling. Chances are that they may have caught this mistake but many more will be missed and major ones at that. How exactly could they have missed something this big.

El Siglo

Disgraceful so it is. I mean, whatever about this political shite we usually talk about here on AH, this is sickening, really awful because it's peoples lives that are at risk (even thinking now about Biggins' plea for help regarding the closure of wards in Crumlin Children's Hospital). Sorry for your loss Outlaw, it's a sad indictment of the way things have gotten.

bluto63

Töpher wrote: »

Clowns, did they not realise that you'd probably have delivered by now? :eek:

The whole being Mr Surname might help prevent that

Elenxor

It's time medics realised that when patients go into hospital., they expect to come out alive!!!!

WIZE

Its not just tallaght that is incompetent

My Dad was diagnosed with Liver cancer a 3 years ago and through the Last year he really lost loads of weight . He started to get really bad pains in his back and and week by week he got out of bed less and less due to the pain . Every time the Doctor came to the house he called for an ambalance which brought my dad to Blanchardstown Hospital who would give him Pain killers and send him home . On the last time he went to Blanchardstown in servere pain we asked them to fully check him out . They refused saying that it was lack of excerise and lying in bed so long that was causing the pain .

4 weeks later we brought him into Vincents Hospital as we requested they give him a full check up .
Within 24 hr they told us the cancer from his liver had spread to his Vertabrae in his spine . he never left Vincents and died 2 weeks later .
The doctor said that if they had of found it earlier they could have tried treating it maybe to at least ease the pain via Radiation therapy

Midnight_EG

Töpher wrote: »

Clowns, did they not realise that you'd probably have delivered by now? :eek:

Did you not realise he's a Mr.?

pirelli

Midnight_EG wrote: »

Did you not realise he's a Mr.?

:rolleyes:

Midnight_EG

pirelli wrote: »

:rolleyes:

Shhhh.

pirelli

Töpher wrote: »

Clowns, did they not realise that you'd probably have delivered by now? :eek:

Midnight_EG wrote: »

Did you not realise he's a Mr.?

DetectivFoxtrot

What the fcuk is wrong with this country!!!????

'Process Failure' me arse. As a person who maps processes as part of their job, I fail to see how tests going unchecked en mass can be classed as a process failure. Surely it's petty simple:

Process

Step 1 - Carry out test

Step 2 - Review test results

Step 3 - Document findings and report to GP/patient


How can you do step 1 and 3 and miss 2? HOW??

jesus I'm so annoyed!

dubtom

I wonder what will happen now if you insist a consultant looks at your xrays,a very large bill in the post perhaps.
Honestly wouldn't surprise me actually,someone's going to have to pay for that consultant's 1½ minutes.

El Siglo

DetectivFoxtrot wrote: »

What the fcuk is wrong with this country!!!????

'Process Failure' me arse. As a person who maps processes as part of their job, I fail to see how tests going unchecked en mass can be classed as a process failure. Surely it's petty simple:

Process

Step 1 - Carry out test

Step 2 - Review test results

Step 3 - Document findings and report to GP/patient


How can you do step 1 and 3 and miss 2? HOW??

jesus I'm so annoyed!

Well because the problem is we've health managers that run hospitals along the lines of this... It's ridiculous, imagine Cubans get better health care than we do. Imagine a 'developing country' has better hospitals than this place? All the money that floated around, it's awful even thinking about it.

OutlawPete

Prime Time Special just started on it.

ilovelamp2000

2 mistakes in 57,000 isn't a bad statistic I'd imagine.

shellykbookey

I know its nothing as serious as cancer but my brother went into the local casulty years ago with two broken bones in his foot, long story short I ended up waitin with him, x ray taken, sent back to doc in a&e he looks at it and says brother has a sprain. This happened twice more in the same week same doc each time. I was quite young at the time and even I could see where the two bones were broken and when I pointed that out to the doc he said "no my dear your foot is made up of lots of small bones". In the end the radiologist came up to a&e with the xray and asked the doc why she was doing my brother again and why wasnt he in a cast. Brother got a cast and I got told off for sayin I told you so to the doc. Any time I've needed an xray since I've always asked (and once had to demand) to see it, even if I dont know what I'm lookin for it puts the wind up the doc and makes them check. If I ever have to get something serious checked I'm bringing the results to my GP she's the only doc I'd trust

alwaysadub

Rosco1982 wrote: »

2 mistakes in 57,000 isn't a bad statistic I'd imagine.

That's 57,000 x rays that the consultants missed in the first place!!!
How is that not a bad statistic???

yoshytoshy

Rosco1982 wrote: »

2 mistakes in 57,000 isn't a bad statistic I'd imagine.

They haven't checked the 57,000 yet.

deisedevil

Someone has said it already and I agree, it didn't even shock me that much to read this. I know someone, now deceased, with similar issues relating to all clears and things not being checked properly.
The amount of times I have had experience of things not being looked into correctly or misdiagnoses is crazy, to the point where I just expect hospitals to get things wrong on a regular basis. We shouldn't have to put up with this poor class of health system we have and I think that these days we have become so immune to being shocked by the failures of our country in so many areas we just don't even bat an eyelid anymore when we hear these stories. Sad state of affairs indeed.

My heart goes out to you OP, I have lost a lot of friends and family to cancer and the way in which your father was treated was deplorable to say the least. I hope some day someone is held accountable.

OutlawPete

yoshytoshy wrote: »

They haven't checked the 57,000 yet.

24,000 yet to check.

OutlawPete

deisedevil wrote: »

My heart goes out to you OP, I have lost a lot of friends and family to cancer and the way in which your father was treated was deplorable to say the least. I hope some day someone is held accountable.

Cheers but my Dad's story isn't unique by a long way.

I have heard so many first hand stories of people with similar experiences. We just don't hear about them as they don't really have a voice. My Dad was harmless man from the country and he always had an inbuilt respect for Doctors, Guards, Priests etc so it broke him to think they could say he was fine, then say he wasn't and not explain it.

He was lied to in the hospital to by the Oncologist and had a row that took the last bit of strength he had.

Oh I don't know.

m@cc@

Absolutely scandulous Pete, can't even imagine the anger I'd feel if I was put in that situation.

Something similar happened (although not as serious) to the gf's mother in Enniskillen. She went to hospital complaining of severe cramps. The consultant done some scans and diagnosed it as 'Crohn's disease' (inflammation of the intestines). They sent her home with medication. But she was still having the cramps so she went back again. Again they sent her on her way with medication.

So she then went to the Royal Hospital in Belfast. It turned out, half the tissue in her bowel was dead and they had to remove it to save the remaining tissue. If it had been allowed to continue, she'd have been dead within months.

Thankfully, we live in an age where we're not afraid to question doctors opinions.

hooradiation

deisedevil wrote: »

The amount of times I have had experience of things not being looked into correctly or misdiagnoses is crazy, to the point where I just expect hospitals to get things wrong on a regular basis.

This is because nobody drones on and on about the time they were seen in a timely fashion and nothing went wrong. People only remember the bad things.

If the health system was as bad as people say it is, we'd all be dead.

OutlawPete

m@cc@ wrote: »

So she then went to the Royal Hospital in Belfast. It turned out, half the tissue in her bowel was dead and they had to remove it to save the remaining tissue. If it had been allowed to continue, she'd have been dead within months..

It happens more than we think:

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/my-wife-died-after-twice-getting-the-allclear-for-cancer-1473392.html

http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2008/11/17/story77610.asp

m@cc@

hooradiation wrote: »

This is because nobody drones on and on about the time they were seen in a timely fashion and nothing went wrong. People only remember the bad things.

If the health system was as bad as people say it is, we'd all be dead.

We pay a lot of money to make sure we're seen in a timely fashion and nothing went wrong. I have the utmost respect for the work that the medical profession does but it's this 'never question' culture that gives them a God complex and means that they make mistakes. It we get crap service in a hotel, we'd have every right to complain. Only difference is, in a hotel, it's not people lives that are in danger.

OutlawPete wrote: »

It happens more than we think:

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/my-wife-died-after-twice-getting-the-allclear-for-cancer-1473392.html

http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2008/11/17/story77610.asp

Sad as it is, I think the message is, go to as many hospitals as it takes until you get the answer you want.

My name is URL

hooradiation wrote: »

This is because nobody drones on and on about the time they were seen in a timely fashion and nothing went wrong. People only remember the bad things.

If the health system was as bad as people say it is, we'd all be dead.

That's a seriously flippant attitude for someone to take on such a real issue, and one that I would have thought you were better than tbh

It's not an isolated incidence either.. as far back as records have being kept about medical practices in Ireland there have been discrepancies with how things are done

Sure it's only one doctor though so lets ignore it :rolleyes:.. well no, it's not just one doctor, it's not just one hospital.. it's one in a long list of scandals that have been uncovered in this country within the medical profession

Doctors train doctors after all.. is sweeping it away as a non-issue really the way to go about bettering things?

Just tonight on Prime Time there was a piece about survivors of Thalidomide being fobbed off by the government and given little support, are they just droning on too.. do they not at least deserve the satisfaction of those responsible being held to account for what happened to them?

littlefriend

Sorry to all those who have posted about people they have lost. Horrendous stories all of them

Every week a new story breaks about some atrocity that has or is taking place in this country. What is it going to take for everyone to snap? I mean, how much more can everybody take?

talla10

this is an absolute disgrace and surely now mary harney has to be sacked as minister she has overseen a terrible health service turn into a 3rd world health service surely we deserve much much better!!

ilovelamp2000

OutlawPete wrote: »

Cheers but my Dad's story isn't unique by a long way.

I have heard so many first hand stories of people with similar experiences. We just don't hear about them as they don't really have a voice. My Dad was harmless man from the country and he always had an inbuilt respect for Doctors, Guards, Priests etc so it broke him to think they could say he was fine, then say he wasn't and not explain it.

He was lied to in the hospital to by the Oncologist and had a row that took the last bit of strength he had.

Oh I don't know.

Did you ever get you fathers x-rays reviewed by an independent expert ?

OutlawPete

Rosco1982 wrote: »

Did you ever get you fathers x-rays reviewed by an independent expert ?

Too long a story to go into here, but not as of yet for, a plethora of reasons.

m@cc@

OutlawPete wrote: »

Too long a story to go into here, but not as of yet for, a plethora of reasons.

I'm right in thinking you have a legal right to access the records?

OutlawPete

m@cc@ wrote: »

I'm right in thinking you have a legal right to access the records?

Yup, can't say much more on here but should things go the way we hope, I will post it.

littlefriend

Is there any possibility that our nations paragon of health Mary Harney will have to resign over this?

Biggins

littlefriend wrote: »

Is there any possibility that our nations paragon of health Mary Harney will have to resign over this?

Not a hope in hell.

1. FF need her seat even more so now for a start and they will try to keep her in it till the two year away election date.

2. She has a neck like a jockeys arse. She is gone missing again and is again trying to ride out the storm by saying nothing.

littlefriend

Biggins wrote: »

She is gone missing again and is again trying to ride out the storm by saying nothing.

What an extraordinary time we are living in.

orourkeda

This point has probably been made before but dont the HSE and health professionals stress the importance of checking your health on a regular basis. Turns out youre not even safe doing that.