TEN years after undergoing surgery to remove stones from both of his kidneys, a Shenzhen resident known as Li needed another five surgeries this year to remove a tube that had been left in his kidney and was rotting, and yet the hospital had not responded to Li’s complaint, SZTV reported.

Li, originally from Hunan Province, recalled that he had been working at a factory in Nanshan District 10 years ago when he was diagnosed with renal calculus in both of his kidneys.

At that time, Xili People’s Hospital was the designated hospital for workers at the factory, so Li underwent surgery at the hospital. The surgery conducted on his right kidney was minimally invasive, while his left kidney required an endoscopic surgery.

The doctor told Li to come back to the hospital one month after the surgery to have the two urethra catheters left inside his body extracted. Following the doctor’s instruction, the patient returned to the hospital to have the tubes removed one month later. However, it turned out that one of the tubes was left in his kidney.

It wasn’t until this May that Li realized that one of the two tubes was still inside his left kidney. What’s worse, since the tube had been left there for such a long time, it had begun to rot inside his kidney, so Li needed five surgeries to extract it.

Before getting confirmation from the hospital in May, Li had begun to feel pain in his left waist when he would lift up something heavy or work too hard over the last three or four years. He would also occasionally find blood in his urine.

The patient did not take it very seriously in the beginning, but as the pain in his waist worsened, he became more worried until he was eventually told by doctors at the same hospital that a tube was still in his kidney.

After the five surgeries to extract the rotten tube, Li filed a complaint against the hospital, but he was later told that no medical record had been kept about the treatment and surgeries Li received 10 years ago. Li also could not find his medical records at his home.

However, the patient insisted that he wanted an answer and compensation from the hospital. The director of the hospital’s general affairs department identified as Song said the hospital would give a response to the media next Monday. According to Song, the hospital is now investigating Li’s case.

Wu Lingyan, a local lawyer, said Li’s case could be a medical injury dispute. The hospital must shoulder its responsibility for the accident if a professional accreditation agency can certify it.

Residents were also reminded to keep their medical records and invoices as evidence in case of a medical dispute. (Zhang Qian)