Surgeon sacked after asking cleaner to hold patient's leg while amputating toe

19 May 2023 , 23:18

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The University Medical Center Of The Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, where the operation was performed (Image: Alamy Stock Photo)

A surgeon has been sacked after asking a cleaner to hold a patient's leg as he amputated their toe.

The German doctor, who worked at a university hospital in Mainz, Frankfurt Rhine-Main, performed the operation in 2020.

Ahead of the incident, the patient had been scheduled to undergo a routine toe amputation, with two surgeons due to perform the operation.

When both surgeons were called to the emergency room on a separate incident, a third stepped in to perform the procedure - despite there being no qualified assistants on had.

The surgeon however went ahead with the operation before the partially anaesthetised patient became restless.

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As the patient began to move on the operating table, the surgeon called over a cleaner and asked her to hold the patient's leg down.

When both surgeons were called to the emergency room on a separate incident, a third stepped in to perform the procedure - despite there being no qualified assistants on had - stock image (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The cleaner was also asked to hand him surgical instruments, Südwestrundfunk (SWR), a southwest Germany broadcaster, reported.

'The patient was not harmed,' the university told Allgemeine, adding that they suffered no complications.

An internal letter seen by the newspaper said the incident became known to university officials in October 2020 when the operating room manager spotted the cleaner holding bloody gauze pads in the operating theatre.

The manager said the cleaner was not medically trained and that surgical tools were not accounted for after the surgery.

She said: "After the operation, the room was simply left behind with bloody tables and we organised the cleaning up later.'

"What happened to the operated limb and whether it was disposed of correctly is also beyond my knowledge."

The doctor was given a warning before being fired in 2021, the outlets reported.

A spokesperson for the Rhineland-Palatinate Ministry of Health told Allgemeine the procedure was a "clear violation of existing regulations"

|"This never should have happened,' the German news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (dpa) quoted Pfeiffer as saying.

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