A 72-year-old woman from Patras, western Greece, had a particularly shocking experience when she read the results of her CT scan and discovered that she had been diagnosed with… prostate cancer.
According to local media patrisnews.gr, the woman underwent the CT scan at a private diagnostic center in the city.
Describing the shocking moments when she was reading the report of her scan results, she said:
“I saw the result and was shocked, because it said that I have cancer. In my agitation, I noticed that it specifically mentioned prostate cancer. I looked and looked at the paper again, I saw my name written on it and I went to the doctor immediately.”
As it turned out later, it was an error – of course! However it has not become known whether the responsible was the doctor who evaluated the scan or a member of the diagnostic center’s staff who possibly made a mistake when writing the results.
Despite the intense psychological burden she suffered, the 72-year-old does not seem to have any intention of taking legal action, according to information so far.
Sloppy scan diagnoses trouble Greek patients
The story sounds kind of “funny” as the diagnosis could not be possibly correct. However, more and more patients have been complaining about sloppy diagnosis in scans (CT, MRI, PET) both in private and public sector in the last couple of years.
Recently there was a quite informative exchange of views on social media by Greeks who underwent these scans.However, these people are not organized and are not even in the same city or underwent the scans in the same facility.
A cancer patient under chemotherapy complained of false diagnosis ( absence of cancer mass) in a CT scan at a private hospital and a PET scan in a public hospital. Ultimately it turned out the chemo had not killed the dangerous mass.
Another patient complained that his diagnosis report was “so vague” that even his doctor could not understand it, others of “incomplete” reports. A man who had traveled from an island to a diagnostic center in Athens, he was called a day after he returned home to go to the center again for a new MRI as the first was “mistaken.”
A friend of mine with a serious health problem had a quite loud quarrel with a well-known private diagnostic center who messed up his CT scan diagnosis report. He was ultimately told that their doctors were always “very busy” and mistakes or omissions can happen.
Fact is, however, good radiologists have already migrated abroad, private centers do not invest in skilled (and responsible) staff, there is just a technician but no doctor during the scan and if there’s is a doctor he’s an intern.
At the same time, appointments in public hospital have patients wait for months for a simple CT or MRI with the effect that they rush to private sector.
Worth noting that three years ago, the Greek Health Ministry obliged the public and the private sector to replace their scan machine with modern and highly efficient ones.
Patients seem to be helpless to the whole issue of “wrong diagnosis reports” and this needs to finally have a serious intervention and be addressed by doctors who have been aware of the problem for quite some time.
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