RM was seven years old when, in September 2017, he was admitted to the emergency room at a health center. His mother remembers him: “He told me that it hurt a lot and I took him to the clinic. The pediatrician referred him to the Hospital de Mataró because it could be a possible torsion of the testicle and there, after examining him, they sent us home with medication. The boy did not I couldn’t even walk.” Years have passed and the Court of Barcelona has certified in a sentence that the negligence and that an error occurred in the diagnosis of the pathology. Section 17 Court has condemned the insurance company of the Catalan Health Service to indemnify the minor with 41,713 euros, plus late-payment interest that adds up to another 31,000 euros.
On September 1, 2017, it was when the child stepped foot in the hospital for the first time due to that intense pain. In his genital area, he presented symptoms compatible with testicular torsion, but he was diagnosed epididymo-orchitis, an inflammation that occurs due to an infection. Since she was not improving, the boy’s mother decided two days later to take him back to the health center. The testicle was very inflamed, almost “like a fist,” the mother says. The mere palpation caused the child immense pain. After consulting with the surgery department, the doctors discharged him again, rescribing antibiotics, although with the medical warning that if he did not improve in 24 hours he would return again.
This is what happened on September 4. The pain in the left testicle continued and this organ was inflamed. This third time, the Mataró Hospital referred the child to the Gernans Trias Hospital in Badalona, where he underwent a first operation. He underwent an orchidopexy, an intervention to lower the testicles into the scrotum. The mother, represented by the lawyer José Aznar Cortijo, from the Verdún Legal firm, was given hope that the minor could save the testicle. “That’s so tiny that it falls apart,” she explained to him. However, these expectations faded and the doctors found that it could be testicular retortion, so the little boy underwent surgery again and his left testicle was removed.
emergency treatment
Testicular torsion is a condition that requires urgent treatment almost immediate. It is essential, according to the plaintiff’s lawyer, to intervene surgically within six hours of the first signs of its presentation. Beyond this time, he maintains, the viability of the testis is seriously compromised. In this case, the minor was referred to the Mataró Hospital from the primary care center (CAP) when the pain had been present for two or three hours. Therefore, and given the short period remaining to solve the problem, swift action should have been taken to avoid the removal of the organ. The symptoms that the child presented are characteristic and typical of testicular torsion and according to the lawsuit, certain maneuvers were not carried out to detect the situation and action was not taken diligently.
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The Court of Barcelona has revoked a sentence of a trial judge and has estimated the demand. The court ruling argues that “we are faced with an assumption of medical-sanitary responsibility for an incomplete examination of the patient, due to an error in the diagnosis of the ailment that afflicted him and, fundamentally, a very hasty decision to discharge him from the hospital and return home “.
The resolution adds that, “although the existence of an infection is considered more probable, what is advisable and prudent, given the consequences that it (the diagnosis) was wrong, was to maintain the hospital follow-up of the treatment“. The amputation of the testicle has caused the boy aesthetic damage, but he has not had any other sequelae and he will be able to have offspring. “He plays soccer and is embarrassed to change and shower in the dressing room,” recalls the mother. The minor , who is currently 13 years old, RM is waiting for a prosthesis to be implanted.