A man with serious cancer located near a kidney was treated at the Carballo Hospital (Galicia) for approximately two years, as if he had a psychiatric disorder, instead of receiving oncological care appropriate to their true illness. According to the information published, mainly due to The Voice of Galicia, The patient was referred to the psychiatric service under the presumption that his symptoms were due to a mental problem. This error had serious consequences for his final diagnosis and treatment.
The question is: How can kidney cancer be confused with a psychiatric illness?
For two years, the patient was admitted to mental health care circuits, despite the fact that at all times he presented symptoms that could correspond to a physical illness. Negligence or ineptitude of the psychiatrists who treated him throughout that time, or both?
In the end, and once the tragedy for the patient’s health was discovered, and the problem was prosecuted, a court has sentenced the Galician Health Service (Sergas) to pay €90,000 for the treatment received and the loss of opportunity for a proper diagnosis. And although the decision is not final and can be appealed by the health administration, the social and popular discredit, both for said health service and especially for the psychiatric class, is being textbook.
The loss of opportunity for the patient, As the ruling clearly states, it refers to the moral and material damage caused when a late or erroneous diagnosis deprives the patient of the possibility of a treatment that could have significantly improved their physical evolution or their final prognosis. In this case, the judges considered it proven that the delay and incorrect clinical guidance negatively influenced the patient’s care.
It is clear that a mistake like this changes people’s lives. In this case for two important reasons. The first due to the tremendous delay of two years in receiving adequate care to treat kidney cancer, and the second due to having been subjected to the stigma of psychiatric treatment that will have endangered her mental health. Also considering the emotional and physical disorders of a psychiatric treatment that, no matter how mild, will have left lifelong consequences. Doctors seem to have opened a debate about making an adequate clinical evaluation of complex patients, especially when physical and emotional symptoms coexist. Wasn’t the patient given kidney tests when he arrived at the hospital, or was he treated directly with psychiatric pills in order to get rid of it?
Likewise, it seems that greater coordination will be attempted between mental health services and oncology services in said hospital. Although I am very afraid that we will continue to see errors made by doctors in the future. The excuse, saturation of public health and deficiencies in care due to budgets. We users already know the theory, but so does the perception of neglect among healthcare personnel.
Now the debate on patients’ rights is opening again. Do patients have rights? I know hospitals where the patient care service is attended by the dumbest person in the class, someone who is an expert in getting rid of the trouble that comes to them, extending said attention as long as possible. The protocols, in the case in question, have failed miserably and it is now proposed that there is a need to specialize doctors so that they can distinguish between reactive discomfort and a serious illness, that is, symptoms that require referring patients, with some urgency, to competent specialists.
This case reopens, as I mentioned before, discussions about medical training for diagnosis without having performed a single test, diagnose quickly and may God distribute lots. When in doubt, a comprehensive multidisciplinary assessment would not be more normal. Perhaps in hospitals there should be a group of doctors dedicated to this type of consultation. It’s okay for a doctor to say that he has no idea about the treatment of one of his patients, rather than implementing a non-existent psychiatric protocol. A person’s life, their history, their dreams, etc., is at stake. And no matter how much justice launches the compensation process that entails, according to the judge on duty, the terrible medical error, the process of mental destruction that said error entails, it will not be solved in life. How to trust that doctor again, another doctor?
Originally published at LaDamadeElche.com
