Man claims he faces losing testicle due to surgery delays during transfer between hospitals

A MAN says he will have to have a testicle removed after being taken to the Lyell McEwin Hospital for emergency surgery, then transferred to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, resulting in a delay of up to 11 hours.

A man says he will have to have a testicle removed after being taken to the Lyell McEwin Hospital for emergency surgery, then transferred to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, resulting in a delay of up to 11 hours.

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AN Adelaide man says he will need to have one of his testicles removed after being forced to wait up to 11 hours for emergency surgery.

The man — who did not want to be named — blames a shortage of surgeons at Lyell McEwin Hospital for his predicament. The case was the second to emerge this week in which it was claimed a delay in receiving urgent surgery had led to a man losing a testicle.

Earlier this week it was alleged a young man lost a testicle following a two-hour delay in emergency surgery after his transfer from Modbury Hospital, where a surgeon was ready to operate, to Lyell McEwin Hospital as a result of the Government’s new Transforming Health protocols.

Health Minister Jack Snelling has denied the delay led to the patient’s poor outcome.

A 38-year-old northern suburbs man has now spoken out about his own ordeal, which began when he was taken by ambulance to Lyell McEwin after a road accident in May. An ultrasound showed no detectible blood flow to his testicle and he was told he needed an immediate operation.

“But their doctor was on holidays so they couldn’t do it and I was transferred to Royal Adelaide,” he said, adding that he’d waited about 11 hours to undergo surgery, by which stage his testicle had “swollen massively”. He said doctors told him his testicle could not be saved — and he now has to wait for it to die and then it will need to be removed.

“I’ve been told to expect it to shrivel up,” he said. “I reckon if they’d operated when it wasn’t as swollen it wouldn’t have been a problem. If one hospital is saying it required immediate surgery you can’t just go to another hospital and they get to it when they can. They should have sufficient staff to be able to handle what comes along.”

He is seeking legal advice. Meanwhile, an SA Health spokesman said there was “no adverse clinical outcome” as a result of the man’s treatment.

But SA Salaried Medical Officers Association president Dr David Pope said the health system “does not have the capacity to deal with emergency cases in a timely fashion in many instances”.

“It’s not uncommon to have cases transfer from Lyell McEwin to the RAH for urgent surgery only to find that it can’t happen because of lack of theatre time,” he said.

Dr Pope said downgrading the Modbury and Queen Elizabeth Hospital emergency departments was putting pressure on other hospitals and leading to delays in emergency operations.