Man Awarded $24K After Being Mistakenly Circumcised

A man circumcised by mistake has been awarded $24,000 in compensation by a hospital in Leicester, England.

Terry Brazier, 70, said he went to the Leicester Royal Infirmary in September of last year for a bladder procedure but hospital staff mistakenly identified him as another patient.

“They didn’t know what to say when they found out they’d done it, they said they can’t send me back to the ward and they needed to talk to me,” he said.

The procedure Brazier planned to have involved Botox being injected into the wall of the bladder via a thin camera. However, Brazier said he was “distracted” during the procedure, which turned out not to be what he thought.

“It was a real surprise. I went in the surgery for some Botox and they ended up circumcising me,” he commented.

The National Health Service (NHS) categorizes such instances as “Never Events” that can and should be averted.

“Never Events are serious, largely preventable patient safety incidents that should not occur if healthcare providers have implemented existing national guidance or safety recommendations,” the organization stated.

However, reports state that one of several “Never Events” occurred in November of 2018 when hospital staff mistakenly implanted a hip nail in the wrong side of a patient.

Reports said the hospital apologized for the mix-up and after an investigation, announced Monday that they had compensated Brazier with the money.

Andrew Furlong, medical director at University Hospitals of Leicester said the hospital takes mistakes like these very seriously.

“We remain deeply and genuinely sorry that this mistake occurred, and I would like to take this opportunity to once again apologise to Mr Brazier. We take events like this very seriously and carried out a thorough investigation at the time to ensure that we learnt from this incident and do all we can to avoid it happening again,” Furlong said, adding that “Whilst money can never undo what happened, we hope this payment provides some compensation.”