In the last five years, Norwegian Patient Injury Compensation (NPE) has paid almost NOK 140 million to Norwegian patients who should never have been operated.
A total of 355 patients have been compensated in the period 2013-2017 because they were operated without it being necessary or correct. Most cases concern treatment in the public health services. 56 percent of the patients were women, 44 percent men.
“We look at the cases and we are evaluating many examples of operations that should not have been undertaken, because surgery was not the best treatment solution for the patient,” says Director Rolf Gunnar Jørstad in NPE.
NPE has paid special attention to whether patients had suffered injuries they would probably have avoided without the surgery.
Amongst the patients who have been operated on, a woman had her ovaries mistakenly removed , thus losing the opportunity to have her own children. Another patient received obesity surgery without there being enough grounds for it , and lost her spleen during surgery.
In four of the 355 cases, the surgery led to the death the patients.
© NTB scanpix / #Norway Today
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