An untimely delay

An unnecessary operation delayed appropriate treatment for prostate cancer patient Paul Catmur. One year on, he's still waiting for his surgeon's actions to be investigated.

Last year, I was diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer. I had an operation to remove the prostate, known as a radical prostatectomy. This is an invasive procedure that leaves you incapacitated and wearing a catheter for the next couple of weeks.

Typical side effects of the operation are damage to sexual function, a degree of incontinence, and increased urgency to urinate. This I accepted as the cost of removing a potential deadly disease from my body. However, as it turned out, I should never have had the operation at all.

The problem was not so much that the operation didn't remove all the cancer, but that it couldn't possibly have done so. The actions of the surgeon in carrying out this unnecessary procedure led to a delay in treatment of my cancer, and further compromising side effects.

It also prompted the radiation oncologist who assisted with my subsequent ACC investigation to call for an immediate complaint to the Medical Council.

Doctors are people, too, and while the New Zealand healthcare system is full of many dedicated and hardworking people, from time to time there will be issues. One measure of the overall health of the system is how well it deals with failings when they occur. In this case, it wasn't just the system that was found lacking, I would suggest the systems set up to police this system are failing, too.

It's been a year since I made a complaint to the Office of the Health and Disability Commissioner (HDC), the watchdog body set up to protect patients. Last month, it decided to look into the case, a process it anticipates will take at least another six months - that's as an "urgent" case. The Medical Council, which says it has strong legal powers to protect patients from harm when a doctor falls short of its standards, has decided to wait for the HDC decision before taking any action.

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