Missing hip part cancels surgery, man gets the news while on operating table

A St. Thomas, Ont. man was taken aback and left out-of-pocket after he travelled three hours for surgery in Owen Sound — only to learn the hospital was missing a part for his operation while on the operating table.

A St. Thomas, Ont. man was taken aback and left out-of-pocket after he travelled three hours for surgery in Owen Sound — only to learn the hospital was missing a part for his operation while on the operating table.

“I’m laying there flat on my back, IV in my arm and everything else, and they’re ready to put the spinal tap in to knock me out,” Ricky Murray, 53, explained. “And they said, ‘Oh we have a problem. What’s that? We haven’t got one of your parts. No parts? Yeah we have no part, it’s gone, missing, or somebody didn’t order it.’”

The surgery was scheduled in November of last year, to take place this past Monday, on Jan. 16. It was for first thing in the morning, so he arrived the night before with his family, and stayed at a hotel.

His daughter, Camdyn Murray, was blown away when she got the news while sitting in a hotel room worried and waiting on her dad.

“And I was like, ‘What? Your surgery’s canceled?’ That’s just unbelievable. We spent a night there and it’s all for nothing,” she said.

Murray said he was offered the surgery on the spot, but using a part made with steel instead of ceramic, and of a different size. He opted against it because a couple years earlier he had the same surgery on the other side using ceramic, and he wanted both the right and left sides to be the same.

Murray now wants compensation from the hospital for the hundreds of dollars he is out for on expenses. He said he spoke with patient services at Grey Bruce Health Services, but was not happy with their response.