M'sian man claims 5-hour delay in treatment may have resulted in worsening condition, amputation
HE was rushed to hospital when both his legs suddenly went numb and he could not walk.
A bewildered Mr Cai in his hospital bed soon after his third operation. -- Picture: GUANG MING DAILY
But Mr Cai Shi Cai, 47, was made to wait five hours in the emergency room. And all the while, his right leg was turning black.
When a doctor finally attended to him and realised his condition was serious, he was rushed into surgery. But it was too late.
Mr Cai's right leg had to be amputated, Guang Ming Daily reported.
Mr Cai, a plumber, said he hasn't decided whether to sue the Kuala Lumpur hospital or to demand compensation.
He said his main concern was to highlight his case to the hospital, so that it does not make the same alleged mistake.
Mr Cai, a father of five children aged 10 to 23, said that before he was hospitalised, he was in good health and never suffered from any unusual aches and pains.
He said he was at work as usual and fixing a pipe at about noon on 15 Jun, when his legs suddenly went numb.
'Although it wasn't painful, I couldn't walk,' he said.
Concerned, his colleagues rushed him to the hospital, but left him there alone as they had to get back to work.
Mr Cai said that when he was in the emergency room, a nurse came to see him. But, he claimed, she only used a small mallet to test his reflexes and left him without giving any further instructions.
He said: 'I was just lying there, waiting foolishly for a doctor to come and treat me.
'Then, both my legs started to lose sensation and harden... As I waited and waited, I saw my leg turn black in more and more places.'
Mr Cai said that he reached the hospital at about 2.30pm. But it was only after 7pm - almost five hours later - that a doctor came to see him.
He claimed that the doctor looked at his legs and realised his condition was serious - the arteries in his legs had become blocked, cutting off the blood circulation.
Mr Cai was rushed into surgery at about 9pm, where blood was drained from his legs.
But the next day, when the doctor checked on him again, he said that Mr Cai's right leg had already turned gangrenous and that it had to be amputated.
At first, doctors tried to save part of Mr Cai's leg, amputating only his right calf.
But his condition was found to be too severe, and he underwent surgery for the third time to amputate the rest of his right leg.
He said: 'Later, a doctor told me, that if I had been treated earlier, they wouldn't have had to amputate my leg. But he didn't admit that the hospital was negligent.'
Mr Cai is now learning to walk on crutches.
He said that now that he is crippled, he can no longer work as a plumber.
His wife has given up her hawker stall to look after him full-time.
The family of seven now depend on his eldest son's earnings.
A hospital spokesman told Guang Ming Daily that when the hospital receives a complaint from the family, it will launch an investigation.
taken :
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/st...36160,00.html? 
Long wait in ER cost me leg 
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