Overport car accident survivor, Sudesh Miniram Sewraj, has vowed to sue King Edward Hospital for medical negligence after he discovered pieces of glass under his stitches a few weeks after he was discharged from the hospital.
Sewraj was involved in an accident on 26 July and was admitted at King Edward Hospital where he was given a few stitches on his head and ear. He claims that he was then booked for a CT scan and X-ray before being discharged. According to Sewraj, a few days later, he felt constant pain in his head. When he went for a haircut on Saturday, 11 September, he discovered glass pieces under some of the stitches. “When the barber was busy cutting my hair it hurt. I told him to be gentle and explained to him that I had stitches from the accident and I was still healing. After the haircut, I went home and looked in the mirror and I could see the piece of glass stuck in my wound,” explained Sewraj. He then showed his wife the glass when she returned from work. “My wife suggested that we call the hospital to notify them, however, the nurse who answered just said it was normal. She told me that sometimes even a bullet can be left inside a person. I feel that she was being very cheeky,” Sewraj added.
He was so angered by the nurse’s attitude that he decided to contact his lawyers for advice on how he can go about opening a case against the hospital. “My lawyer asked me to brief him and he would get back to me.” Sewraj said the stitches he got on his ear were also not done properly. “A week after being discharged, I was told to visit my local clinic for a check-up and when I did, the nurse at Overport clinic told me that I was not stitched accordingly and called a senior doctor to come have a look. The senior doctor then advised me to go back to King Edward Hospital for a restitching. The service I got and the way they treated me was not acceptable. I was never called back for a review as I had sustained a fracture to my ribs,” he said. Following the senior doctor’s orders, Sewraj went back to King Edward Hospital for a restitching on his ear and was told he needed to go for skin grafting. “Had I not gone back to them for the restitching, I would have not known that I needed skin grafting. I had to wait a couple of hours for them to arrange the procedure, however, they told me I should go home without the stitches and grafting. The wound keeps bleeding,” he explained. On Sunday, 3 October, he found another piece of glass in his head. Sewraj sent correspondence to the provincial Department of Health, however, he has not received a response. The Springfield Weekly Gazette sent several emails and made phone calls to the Department of Health three weeks ago, however, no response was forthcoming at the time of going to print.
