General Medical Council (GMC)

Testicle 'Mistakenly' Removed

A surgeon "mistakenly" cut off a patient's testicle when he was only meant to remove a cyst on his right gonad, the General Medical Council (GMC) heard.

Dr Sulieman Al Hourani, who was working as a locum surgeon at Fairfield General Hospital in Bury, is accused of misconduct for the incident and also faces charges of stealing tablets and injecting himself with a drug meant for a patient.

Dr Al Hourani is now practising in Jordan, but has not attended the hearing or been represented by lawyers at the Fitness to Practise Panel, hearing the case at the GMC in Manchester. He has been notified of the hearing but decided to not "engage" with the GMC or appoint lawyers, but the panel has proceeded in his absence.

The man had gone into hospital for the cyst to be removed on September 5, 2007 and his medical notes made it "perfectly clear" the procedure was to be "excision of right epididymal cyst", said the GMC's counsel Sarah Prichard.

Ms Prichard added: "The theatre staff will tell the panel that their impression of what happened was that Dr Al Hourani had mistakenly removed the testicle rather than the cyst and expressed him(self) rather quite surprised the testicle rather than that which the patient had consented for was removed."

The hearing, scheduled to last three weeks, was adjourned until Tuesday morning.

Copyright © Press Association 2010

Lindsay Wise from law firm Irwin Mitchell said: "This is yet another example where a patient has been let down by the failure of the NHS to check the qualifications and experience of foreign doctors it employs. The ability to communicate sufficiently with patients in English should be a basic requirement and this case demonstrates the need for more fundamental checks to ensure doctors have the right skill set to practice."