The Auckland District Health Board (ADHB) and a surgeon are being sued by a mother who fears her son could be infected with the brain disorder Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD)
A hearing in the High Court at Auckland has been set for next month. The mother is suing fornegligence and mental stress, a national Sunday newspaper reported today.
In April, doctors told 32 adults and 11 children there was a slim risk they had contracted CJD disease because the same sterilised surgical instruments used on a 30-year-old woman who later died of the disease were used in their operations in March.
It can take decades for the disease, which destroys brain cells and leaves patients comatose and with dementia, to appear. There is no treatment or cure. Sterilising surgical instruments does not necessarily prevent the spread of the disease.
The woman had a brain operation in 1984 at the age of seven, when it is believed she received infected matter in a product called Lyodura, used to patch together the brain.
A meeting between patients and the board in July heard that doctors had not followed international guidelines for vetting patients with Lyodura grafts.
Speaking for ADHB, Starship Children's Health manager Kay Hyman said it intended to defend the lawsuit and had hired Auckland crown law firm Meredith Connell.
Ms Hyman said there was no evidence that the patient involved in the lawsuit had CJD and the risk of him developing it was negligible.
Auckland lawyer Harry Waalkens QC is representing the neurosurgeon.
