This Bizarre Mistake By A Doctor Leaves One Man Wondering If He’ll Ever Be A Dad

A British hospital offered an “unreserved” apology this week to a man who came in for what was described as a minor surgical procedure and left unable to become a father — because for some strange reason, doctors there gave him a vasectomy instead.

Health authorities in the U.K. are calling the monumental screw-up by medical staff at Royal Liverpool Hospital a “never event.” In other words, it was the kind of mistake that should simply never happen, under any circumstances.

Britain’s National Health Service defines such “never” events as “serious, largely preventable patient safety incidents that should not occur if the available preventative measures have been implemented.”

Now the patient, whose name and age are not being released due to confidentiality rules, is left wondering if he will ever be able to father children.

“We have apologized unreservedly to the patient and we are offering him our full support. We greatly regret the distress this has caused him,” said the hospital’s medical director Dr. Peter Williams. “This is a serious incident and we are investigating this fully to understand why it occurred and how we can ensure it does not happen again.”

The hospital’s CEO, Aidan Kehoe, said that it appeared the standard World Health Organization surgical safety checklist in common use had not been properly followed.

The hospital is now investigating how the bizarre mistake happened, and the surgeon who performed the unwanted vasectomy has been barred from carrying out any more operations; at least until investigators figure out how he made such an inexcusable blunder.

The hospital had made just one other “never” mistake since 2011, when a dentist pulled the wrong tooth from a patient.

A vasectomy involves snipping and tying off the tubes that carry sperm from the male testicles. While the operation itself is a 99 percent effective measure when it comes to preventing unwanted pregnancies, attempts to reverse a vasectomy and reconnect the tubes succeed at only a 55 percent rate.

Hospital union official Paul Summers said the incident could be linked to recent budget cuts in Britain’s government-run health care system.

“The quality of care at the Royal is usually of a high standard and incidents such as this are rare,” said Paul Summers of the vasectomy mistake. “But I fear that cuts to staffing levels places greater pressure on existing staff and systems of work and can lead to incidents like this.”

Image: Graeme Dawes / Shutterstock