"Immediately stopped"

Knees mixed up! Mishap during surgery at the clinic

The mishap occurred at the Innsbruck Clinic.(Bild: Christof Birbaumer)

Embarrassing mishap at Innsbruck hospital: During a planned arthroscopy of a patient's knee on Wednesday, there was a mix-up of sides, as the hospital itself announced on Friday. The procedure was stopped immediately when the mix-up was noticed.

It is currently unclear how the mix-up occurred. "For reasons that are still being investigated, the sides were mixed up for the patient in question and the procedure was started on the wrong knee," the clinic said in a statement on Friday morning.  

"Procedure immediately stopped"
Once it became clear "that this knee did not require surgical treatment, the procedure was immediately stopped and the patient was brought out of anesthesia," the statement continued.

The patient was "fully informed" about the incident and "a report was sent to the liability insurance company" of the clinic.

From a purely medical point of view, this was a minor incident with no consequences, as the procedure was stopped in time.

Alois Obwegeser, Ärztlicher Direktor

Bild: Christof Birbaumer

"Taking the incident very seriously"
"Of course, we have already apologized to the patient in the most formal manner," said Alois Obwegeser, Medical Director of the Innsbruck Clinic. "From a purely medical point of view, this was a minor incident with no consequences, as the procedure was stopped in time. Nevertheless, we take what happened very seriously!"

All steps have already been taken to investigate the incident in detail together with all the professional groups involved. "In order to draw conclusions on how we can further improve our already very high safety measures," said Obwegeser.