Internationally renowned composer left wheelchair-bound after hospital misdiagnosis
Clinical Negligence News : 17 May 2012
Andrew Downes, an internationally renowned composer, has won his medical negligence case against Russells Hall Hospital in Dudley where he was treated after suffering a spinal cord injury. Andrew, 61, is now wheelchair-bound for the rest of his life as a consequence of the medical negligence he experienced whilst at the hospital back in 2009.
Mr Downes had been complaining of severe back pain but staff at the hospital had simply put this down to a urine infection. Had they sent Mr Downes for an X-Ray, they would have seen that he actually had been suffering from a fractured spine.
The misdiagnosis and subsequent delay in reaching a correct diagnosis resulted in Mr Downes developing a complete spinal cord injury and losing the feeling in his legs. Speaking about the injury, Mr Downes said, "The back pain was far worse than anything I'd experienced before and I knew it definitely wasn't a urine infection…I was put on morphine for the pain which left me disorientated and drifting in and out of consciousness and one time I woke up and I had lost all feeling in my legs”.
Losing the ability to walk was described by Mr Downes as, “a terrifying feeling” which was “beyond belief”.
The hospital has now admitted that they had been negligent in their diagnosis but a final settlement figure has yet to be agreed.
Mr Downes deeply hopes that lessons will be learnt from the mistakes which were made during his stay at the hospital, so as to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.