Czech Doctors Leave Surgical Instrument in Patient

02/17/10 12:12PM

Mail Foreign Service 

A Czech woman is planning to sue a hospital where she was treated after X-rays revealed doctors had left a foot-long surgical spatula in her abdomen.

Blunder: A foot-long spatula type medical instrument was left inside Zdenka Kopeckova's abdomen after a gynaecological operation

Zdenka Kopeckova, 66, had been complaining of severe abdominal pain for five months after a gynecological operation at a hospital in the Southeastern Czech town of Ivancice.

 A 66-year-old Czech woman is suing a hospital after a foot-long medical tool was left inside her abdoment after a gynecological operation. Zdenka Kopeckova complained repeatedly of severe pain following the surgery, but she says she received no help from hospital staff.

Kopeckova claims that staff at the hospital tried to cover up the mistake by dismissing her complaints and recommending pain killers. She told London’s Daily Mail, "'I said that nobody helps me and I cannot live like this till the end of my life. 

"I'll get pills, have a glass of alcohol and hang myself."

Clinic head Jaromir Hrubes blamed "a series of individual failures" for the forgotten spatula and said four employees had been punished. 

The spatula was removed from Kopeckova’s stomach last week.