11:19am Thursday 18th December 2008
A Barnet pensioner has won £180,000 compensation from the NHS after he was dropped in a hospital, shattering his thigh bone and crippling him for life.
Harold Shaw’s life has been devastated by the accident, which happened while he was recovering from a hip replacement operation in Finchley Memorial Hospital in July 2006.
The formerly independent pensioner, 82, of Lionsdown Road in New Barnet, will never walk again and needs help to perform the most basic tasks.
He now lives permanently in Lady Sarah Cohen care home in Friern Barnet, apart from Jaqueline, his wife of 41 years.
Mr Shaw said: “I used to walk four miles every day. Now I can’t get out of a chair. I’m devastated and I want to cry all the time.
“I used to be such a vibrant guy.”
It took a lengthy legal wrangle with the NHS that went to the High Court to secure compensation, in which time Mr Shaw’s son David Shaw, 43, said Barnet Primary Care Trust hindered efforts to find out what happened.
“They tried to blame my father for the accident and it completely wasn’t his fault,” he said. “When we tried to find out what happened the answers they gave were extremely vague.
“It wasn’t until we forced them to give us witness statements that we got to the truth.”
Mr Shaw was moved to Finchley Memorial, in Granville Road, North Finchley from London’s University College Hospital following his operation on a Friday night.
Staff at the Finchley Memorial failed to realise that he could not put any weight on his leg.
The following Sunday at around 10.30pm a nurse tried to help him to his feet to get him from a chair into his bed, his leg gave way and he crashed to the floor, breaking his new hip replacement and shattering his femur bone.
It was midnight before an ambulance was called to take Mr Shaw to a hospital with emergency services and, in the meantime, he had to phone his family to inform them himself.
Mr Shaw’s son David, 43, said: “This has ruined his life, pretty much. He’ll never be able to return home which is very hard because he’s very emotionally attached to my mum.
“He’s stuck in a wheelchair and if he needs to go to the bathroom or anything he’s reliant on carers. It’s a very undignified life.
“He’s a shadow of his former self.”
The compensation will only cover Mr Shaw snr’s private care until July 2009.
Mr Shaw jnr added: “He went through a lot of operations to repair the damage and he acquired an infection in his leg.
"His thigh bone is deteriorating and the effect is that the metal they’ve put in is like loose meccano - it can’t support him."
“He’s still very sharp witted but because of the drugs he takes for the pain, some days he just wants to sleep or sit in his room.”
James Bell, a solicitor from Russell Jones and Walker who represented Mr Shaw, said: “In these sort of cases no one wins. Mr Shaw’s life’s been put back several years and he’ll never walk again.
“This is no lottery pay out. He’d much rather have his health back, as all people in this situation would.”
A spokeswoman for Barnet PCT said: "The PCT endeavours to ensure that each patient receives high quality health care.
"We do however understand that at times we are not always able to meet the needs and expectations of every individual.
"We would like to apologise for any distress that may have been caused on this occasion."
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