GRAPHIC pictures show how a nurse and doctor mangled a woman’s arm as they tried to remove her contraceptive implant.
Megan O’Shea claims the implant was snapped in half and that fingers were placed into an open wound during the botched procedure.
The 24-year-old retail worker was left unable to use her arm for days following the botched appointment at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee earlier this month.
Megan claims the nurse and doctor took over an hour on the usually straight forward procedure.
After part of the implant was left inside her arm, a nurse put her fingers into the wound to try to fish it out, putting Megan at risk of getting an infection.
When the implant was finally removed, the nurse then closed the wound up using the wrong stitches.
Megan has now launched a complaint with Dundee Health and Social Care Partnership over the traumatic experience.
Speaking today about the ordeal, Megan said: “When I first went in you could see the implant in my arm and the first young nurse said it should be easy to remove and I’d be in and out.
“She then said it was quite deep in which I thought was bizarre because you could see it.
“She tried to push it out but just pushed it further up my arm, and said that had never happened before so she went to get a senior doctor.
“The doctor started cutting further into my arm and 40 minutes later she got hold of the implant, but she bent it and I could still feel something in my arm. And I was certain it was bigger going in my arm than coming out.
“There was still part of the rod in my arm so the doctor came back. She made another incision but she kept finding it and losing it and cutting further into my arm.
“She was trying to pull it with her index finger and trying to put her pinky right in, it was insane.”
The doctor informed Megan that her fingers might feel numb as there was a chance she could be pulling on the wrong thing.
She added: “I was worried because at points I was getting pins and needles so thought they could have been causing permanent damage.
“There are all sorts of veins and arteries that she could have cut through.
“That night I bled through all the dressing which I didn’t think was right and I couldn’t use my arm so I got an appointment with my own doctor. She put paper stitches over the stitches that were initially put in.
“I was also given a course of antibiotics to prevent infection as their fingers shouldn’t have been in my arm.”
The hospital staff finally manages to remove the implant but tried to shift the blame onto the person, who also worked at the hospital, that inserted the implant in the first place.
Megan listened in horror as the mistakes continued when the nurse realised she had used non dissolvable stitches by mistake.
Two weeks on, her arm is still sore when it presses against anything but she can use it now.
A spokesperson for Dundee Health and Social Care Partnership, said, “Due to patient confidentiality, we are unable to comment on matters relating to individual patients.
“We have received a complaint, which will be investigated in line with our normal procedures.”
