Malpractice. That is a really bad thing for the person having to live with the result of if. Denis is a victim of this and is suffering for life. The following took place in Sweden and that makes it even worse, since they dont have any compensation to speak of. Its no more than pocket money, no matter how badly the malpractice hits you.
It started back in 1988. The family were farmers with a rather big farm. Denis had never been sick like that before so it came right out of the blue. One morning he couldnt get out of bed, his back was the problem. Once they finally got him up, he could barely walk and move. They got him to the doctor in the nearby village. The diagnosis was Ischias Lumbago. No question about that. The doctor was very clear on that. At the time they had 19 horses to take care of and their 7 children were between 1 and 15 years old. With Denis totally knocked out from pain, the children and my associate lasted a year. It was a tough year, believe me, and it was with great pain that they decided to sell and move to a smaller farm, but it had to be done.
Denis didnt get any better. It didnt help a bit that the doctor kept telling them that he would. After moving, in November 1989, he got a new doctor in the nearby little town. Since his records were sent to that doctor, the same happened again. It was Ischias and no need to look any further. The fact that he kept getting worse didnt change that. He just got new painkillers all the time instead and was sent to different physical training. He ended up using walking sticks to be able to walk but even that didnt get the doctors to feel they needed to look for another reason behind all the pain. Denis own doctor tried several times during this time to get the experts in the nearby big hospital to give him a full scan since at least he felt this was not right. Ischias is very painful but it is supposed to come and go, not give the person suffering from it constant pain 24/7/365.
Nothing happened. They just kept sending letters between them about how they treated Denis. New pills, stronger and stronger until he was a wreck.
On top of everything, Sweden was in big financial problems in the early 90s and so was Denis family, and in 1992 they lost it all, the farm, their horses, everything. They were forced to move to an apartment in the nearby town. It was like ending up on the moon. Not easy for a farmers family to adjust to that new life, living on the Swedish welfare with 7 children and still with a very, very sick man. Have you ever lived for a long time with someone in pain? Trust me, it is very difficult and it causes problems for the whole family.
The Social welfare started a war against this family. I suppose they had never dealt with a normal family before. They forced them to move 5 times in 2 years. Can you imagine how difficult it was to find somewhere to live with a big family like that, trying to keep them all together, something they didnt care a bit about. Sweden was in a big financial depression and so were the family.
My associate couldnt find a job and after all those years as a farmers wife and a mother of 7, taking care of her own children, she had nothing to offer anyway. In the summer of 1994, she got sick too. I suppose all the worries finally got to her and she was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. More pain in the family and she also ended up in a wheelchair for a short time before she started to fight back. I suppose she was fighting back for all of them and she managed to find a house just outside town that was for rent. That saved them from going nuts. To be back on the countryside and with a garden outside! Even my Denis had a short time of feeling a little better. Enough to get a job at the local football club as a handyman. For 2 years his pain was at a level that gave him the chance to work with something he loved. Football! They were all very happy for him but it didnt last and he got worse very quickly in early 1997. The same fight to get him to experts started all over and finally in early August they succeeded with a lot of help from their own local doctor.
What do you think they found when finally giving him a full X-ray? A tumor as big as an egg growing on his spine! It only took them 9 years to find it! It was a miracle it didnt kill him every time it started to grow during all those years. Well, they got into a panic and he was finally sent to the biggest hospital in Gothenburg to have the tumor removed. The operation took 11 hours and he survived but with much permanent nerve damage. I wont go into details, since that is very personal for him, you can guess.
He was only 48 years old when this happened. Anyway the big damage was to have no balance, he cant stand without holding on to something. His right foot is partly paralyzed and he needs support inside his shoe to be able to walk straight but he still looks like Charlie Chaplin while trying to walk. At first he couldnt walk at all but he is a fighter, stubborn enough to move mountains. The doctors at the big hospital in Gothenburg helped him to file complaints through the hospital insurance for malpractice. Well, what can I say? If the family had lived in the USA, they would have ended up multi millionaires for what those doctors did to Denis, but they live in Sweden so they ended up almost 2 millions in debt for life.
You see, they do not pay back the real financial loss, only a small amount of money for the suffering and pain. Denis didnt get as much as one Im sorry from the 3 experts that caused all this, since they never bothered to look any further. The family did succeed in giving the doctors a warning but that was all. They are very lucky to still have him with them and he is even more lucky to see his grandchildren growing up. To be a Grandpa is big thing for him and he enjoys every minute together with them.
Michael Russell
Your Independent guide to Malpractice
