Concord Hospital may face compensation claims after alleged backlog and medical misdiagnosis

A major Sydney hospital could be facing massive compensation charges after claims of serious misdiagnosis stemming from a huge backlog.

Concord Hospital in Sydney has been accused of medical negligence. Supplied

A high school teacher is seeking compensation for months of pain, suffering and the cost of an operation to amputate part of her wrist bone after an alleged debilitating medical misdiagnosis stemming from a huge backlog of X-rays and scans at Concord Hospital.

The 60-year-old woman is one of thousands of patients with potential compensation claims for medical negligence against the hospital after their scans were done but the results never checked by senior radiologists.

Fiona, from Sydney’s inner west, said she had a wrist injury misdiagnosed as a fracture instead of a dislocation, so her wrist was immobilised for eight weeks in the dislocated position.

Fiona had a misdiagnosis of a fractured wrist when it turned out to be dislocated, while receiving treatment at Concord Hospital. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Three months later Fiona was still in agonising pain and knew something was badly wrong.

She went to another doctor and who asked for her X-ray reports, and that is when discovered the reports had not been done and were sitting in an estimated 30,000 backlog of scans.

“I ended up seeking out a specialist who eventually had to amputate part of the bone to get my wrist back into position,” Fiona said.

Sydney criminal lawyer Sam Macedone said hospitals have a “responsibility” if they take a scan to let patients know the outcome, and if they didn’t they would be “negligent”.

He said if patients have suffered some sort of damage, pain, suffering or illness then they could have a claim for compensation.

“And if you are that far behind with scans and a disease has spread, then patients could sue them,” said Mr Macedone.

Fiona said she complained to Canterbury hospital where she had the scans done about why she was not told that multiple X-rays taken after the initial diagnosis of a fracture – actually showed she did not have a fracture.

“They took no responsibility for the initial diagnosis,” she said.

She said she believes the SLHD were trying to “gaslight” her complaints by suggesting she had suffered another fall after her first hospital visit.

“This medical gas lighting rather than owning what you have done is inappropriate. It is terrible. Own your errors do something about it, and compensate the people who have been wronged in these situations.”

Fiona after having surgery to fix her wrongly diagnosed wrist injury.

She was treated for a fracture but no-one checked her scans and it was actually a dislocation.

Doctors not authorised to speak to the media, have said it could be the tip of the iceberg, and have alleged radiologists are being warned verbally not to log/record incidents such as Fiona’s misdiagnosis in the hospital’s incident management system.

Concord Hospital and Royal Prince Alfred and now Canterbury hospital have been beset by problems in the past year that erupted into a staff vote of no confidence in the Chief Executive Teresa Anderson.

It has been followed up by the Concord Medical Staff Council passing a vote of no confidence in the SLHD Board.

Sam Macedone is one of Australia's most prolific criminal lawyers. Picture: Darren Leigh Roberts

A new staff survey released in the past week has revealed a lack of faith in the way Concord Hospital is being run.

The People Matters survey has also revealed 20 per cent of staff surveyed said they had witnessed bullying in the past year and just 40 per cent of staff believe senior hospital managers listen to employees.

A spokesman for the SLHD has undertaken actions to address the delayed reporting of radiology imaging studies and so far there has been a reduction of 20 per cent in the images to be reported.

“The majority of these are plain film X-rays and have already been reviewed by the patient’s treating teams. Escalation processes are in place to ensure the reporting of clinically urgent imaging is prioritised and patient care is not compromised,” the spokesman said.

While SLHD acknowledges there is still work to be done, “All staff, including clinicians, are encouraged to escalate all clinical concerns which are investigated and appropriate actions taken.”

If you have been a patient at Concord or Canterbury or Royal Prince Alfred and have not had the results of yours scans made available to you contact [e-mail]