Family upset after son’s operation postponed

An East London family is livid after Frere Hospital discharged their four-year-old son without the surgery he had come in for.

The boy was diagnosed with

impalpable, undescended testes, and his right testis has not yet descended into the scrotal sac.

His first operation last year revealed that his testes were located high and last week’s operation was meant to bring the testes further down.

Jethro Trollip said his son has been feeling pain for quite some time and that he had difficulty urinating.

“This operation needs to be done as soon as possible,” he said.

Frere Hospital CEO Dr Rolene

Wagner confirmed the delays, saying “this was unfortunately postponed

because paediatric surgical emergencies took preference at the last moment”.

The operation has been shelved until March 2.

Wagner said: “There were, in fact, four emergencies on Thursday and two on Friday in addition to two other

critical cases. With regret, by their very nature, emergencies cannot be

predicted with accuracy as they occur randomly.

“The choice to operate on

emergencies is usually made by our

surgeons to save a life and/or prevent dire long-term consequences that are imminent.”

Surgeons had made choices to save lives and prevent more threatening problems, she added.

“When comparing these children’s clinical presentations to , his does not put his life at risk nor does delaying his elective procedure have any increased long-term dire consequences,” Wagner said.

There are two procedures to be

performed – one to facilitate the

detection of a tumour in men who

develop testicular carcinoma and one for cosmetic and psychological reasons.

Wagner said the boy has a normal left testis in his scrotal sac. “It is expected that his fertility, even with the

undescended testes, because of the

normal left testis, at this time is no different to the fertility of any other boy his age. For these reasons, the choice had to be made to postpone his elective procedure in order to accommodate the emergencies that have been referred to Frere.”

She said the hospital was making plans to increase the number of beds and staff for surgical wards.

This would be in addition to the

opening of the paediatric intensive care unit, which boasts high-end state-of-the-art technology, which was part of a strategy that resulted in a 56% reduction in mortality rates in the paediatric ICU in the last quarter compared to the

beginning of 2013-14.

Wagner apologised to his parents and reassured them the steps were being undertaken to ensure that the child had the best possible outcome.