Compensation payout of 260,000 euros to son for death of woman wrongly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in Spain

The Castilla-La Mancha High Court of Justice has ordered the Castilla-La Mancha health service (SESCAM) to pay compensation of 260,000 euros to the son of a patient who was wrongly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer when, in fact, she suffered from bowel cancer.

The 59-year-old woman was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at the Hospital Santa Bárbara in Puertollano (Ciudad Real) and at the Hospital General de Ciudad Real in 2017. As a result, her pancreas, spleen, part of the stomach, gallbladder and part of the duodenum were removed, injuring the ulnar nerve during the operation. According to the judgement, both hospitals failed to carry out the necessary tests to achieve a definitive diagnosis - retrograde cholangiopancreatography and tumour markers - and therefore did not discover that the woman only had chronic pancreatitis and a more serious disease: bowel cancer.

The cancer grew uncontrollably and the patient could only receive palliative treatment until her death. The deceased's family denounced the case in court through the association El Defensor del Paciente, which has now obtained a compensation of 260,000 euros for the son of the deceased.

The judgement considers this compensation to be appropriate for three reasons: for the serious mutilations caused to the woman by an unjustified surgical intervention due to an erroneous diagnosis; for the death of the patient; and for the psychological damage caused to the son. According to the plaintiff's attorney, Francisco Fernández-Bravo, "it was very important to initiate this procedure while the patient was still alive, thereby closing off any grounds for opposition by the administration to the son’s claim regarding the brutal mutilation inflicted on the patient".

President of the El Defensor del Paciente patient rights association Carmen Flores stated that "it is absolutely unheard of for a patient to be discharged without being properly diagnosed, after which she and her ailments are forgotten and ignored. This is why public authorities need to be aware that they must allocate the necessary means so that medical services can dedicate the necessary time and care to all patients, as these cascading errors show us the structural deficiencies of the system".