The past year has been nightmarish for “Henrik” and his family. The 54-year-old has lost his right eye and received a serious cancer diagnosis. – The eye doctor told me that it is not a question of if the cancer will return, but when, he says. “Henrik” is not actually called Henrik, we just call him that in this article. He wishes to remain anonymous. However, news has seen documentation that confirms his story. The cancer is gone now. If it returns, the prognosis is very poor. The tumor A visible cancerous tumor that was not detected was the reason why the 54-year-old lost his eye. At least that’s what two senior doctors at Ullevål Hospital think. A year ago, Henrik had an MRI examination of his head carried out due to suspicion of epilepsy. The radiologist who examined the images found no evidence of this. Nor did she discover the tumor on Henrik’s right eye. A senior doctor at Drammen hospital, where Henrik was treated first, believes that the radiologist should have done this. The tumor was then so large that the eye had to be removed. The mistake has probably also increased the likelihood that the cancer will return. Because the larger the tumor is when it is removed, the greater the chance that the cancer will return, according to a research article from 2015. In that case, the cancer will return in another part of the body. The doctor who did not discover the tumor was one of the radiologists at the controversial clinic in Romania, which news has mentioned in several previous cases. news revealed that the clinic has examined tens of thousands of images on behalf of Unilabs without the Norwegian health authorities knowing about it. The state administrator in Oslo and Viken has now opened an inspection against Unilabs and Vestre Viken health company as a result of the incident. The inspection comes after a complaint from Henrik and his family. Unilabs Unilabs is a private provider of healthcare services in Norway that primarily offers services in radiology, but also medical laboratory services. In Norway, Unilabs has 294 employees. The group in 2021 was bought by the investment company AP Moller Holding, which also owns the Danish shipping giant Maersk. The seller was the Swiss buyout fund Apax Partners. Unilabs has a total of more than 14,200 employees in 15 countries. During the last five available accounting years, Unilabs has increased its operating profit by 130 percent. In total, Unilabs is left with a profit of NOK 238.5 million in the same period. Source: Brønnøysund registers, Bizweb, Unilabs. Reacted to news article In February, Henrik read news’s article about the X-ray company Unilabs. Then Henrik and his family reacted. The radiologist in the news case was the same one they had been told by Unilabs many weeks earlier. The radiologist in Romania alone is said to have analyzed 108,000 of the examinations that Unilabs has sent to Romania since 2016. The MRI images of Henrik were among these. The radiologist in Romania, who has Norwegian authorization and approval, is efficient: In 2021, she alone was responsible for over 22,200 reports from MRI examinations of Norwegian patients. This corresponds to an average of 11.8 examinations per hour. To put it in context: In 2018, Unilabs’ chief medical officer stated that management expects the radiologists to describe 5.3 MRI examinations per hour on average. news has been in contact with the radiologist, who is aware that we are discussing the matter. She does not wish to comment. Said that they had not uncovered any mistakes The CEO of Unilabs Norway, Baber Qazi, has stated at least 13 times in recent weeks to news and other media, Norwegian health authorities and on its own websites that Unilabs has not found any mistakes in the work of the radiologists in Romania. In a letter sent to Norwegian health institutions on 20 February, Unilabs writes that “news’s presentation of the matter is apt to create the wrong impression”. Here, Unilabs director Qazi emphasizes that: “No errors or deficiencies have been discovered in the work carried out in Romania”, despite an “extraordinary quality control in the form of an extended peer review”. But what about Henrik’s case? Seven weeks before news’s coverage, Unilabs received a complaint from the family. The complaint concerned the treatment Henrik had received, which it turned out had taken place at the Romanian clinic. Unilabs: – We are sorry According to Unilabs, the management was not aware of which radiologist was involved until after news’s article. This is what medical director at Unilabs, Fredrik Nomme, writes in an e-mail to news. According to Nomme, the routine is that Unilabs does not enter into cases until they receive an inquiry from Norwegian Patient Injury Compensation (NPE), and this was left to wait. Nomme says this despite the fact that Henrik’s wife called Unilab’s customer service on 2 January and specifically asked for the name of the radiologist. According to the wife, the customer service person should then have said the name of the radiologist in Romania. At the same time, news has asked the company several times in the period leading up to publication questions about operations in Romania. Unilabs has always maintained that no errors or deviations have been uncovered. Regardless, Fredrik Nomme stresses that Unilabs takes the matter very seriously: “We are sorry for the strain both the disease and the case have caused the patient and his next of kin. In line with our recommendation, the patient has reported the case to Norwegian Patient Injury Compensation (NPE), and we look forward to an independent review there,” writes Nomme and continues: Unilabs has 13 clinics in Norway. Here from Sandnes. Photo: Rolv Christian Topdahl / news “We have had a dialogue with the patient and his relatives, and have also been informed that the examination has been described by a radiologist with Norwegian authorization as a doctor and with Norwegian specialist approval in radiology. We do not see that it is medically significant that the descriptive radiologist has been located in Romania”. Asked for the MRI images Henrik was in great pain ahead of the MRI examination in February last year. He could suddenly feel that something “went through his body” and felt unwell afterwards. The wife discovered that Henrik’s face was crooked during these seizures. Despite the fact that the radiologist in Romania found nothing wrong with the MRI images, Drammen Hospital nevertheless concluded that it must be epilepsy. The months passed, it became summer and autumn, and Henrik also began to have problems with the sight in his right eye. Henrik’s wife now found it difficult to believe that it was just epilepsy. In November, she therefore sent her husband to the optician, who immediately raised the alarm. Cancer. A few days later, the eye was removed at Ullevål Hospital. At the same time, the wife sat at home and pondered: Why wasn’t this discovered earlier? Wasn’t an MRI taken of Henrik already in February? The wife asked to be sent the MRI images of Henrik’s head. – I myself saw that there was something on the right eye, she says. The tumor is the light and dark field respectively within the red rings. On MR images taken “from above”, the right eye will appear on the left. The tumor is the bright field within the red rings. On MR images taken “from the side”, the right eye will appear as the left eye. Head of department at Drammen hospital, Gro Vik Knutsen, tells news that Henrik was diagnosed with epilepsy at the time. So he had both cancer and epilepsy. Knutsen further says that the hospital must be able to rely on the analyzes that come from private actors, and that they do not have the capacity to carry out double checks. – The radiological specialists must have equal competence regardless of whether they work in a hospital or privately. The radiology departments in hospitals thus have no task to re-check examinations carried out under private auspices. Such an arrangement would have to mean a significantly reduced capacity for diagnosing the patients, she says. Knutsen emphasizes that Drammen Hospital must follow up the supervision from the state administrator and cooperate. Unilabs does not wish to comment on the medical aspects of the case since it is being processed by NPE and the state administrator. Was summoned to a meeting Since 2 January, Henrik and the family have requested a meeting with Unilabs to get clarity on how the radiologist in Romania could overlook the tumour. Experts at both Ullevål and Drammen hospitals write that it was clearly visible on the MRI images. Drammen hospital also writes that it should have been discovered. Only two days after news’s disclosure, Henrik and his wife received an invitation to a meeting at Unilabs’ branch in Drammen. On 27 February, they were met by medical director Fredrik Nomme and another director at Unilabs. The wife and Henrik are said to have asked why Unilabs had told news only a week earlier that no errors had occurred in Romania. Tens of thousands of images of Norwegian patients were examined here. Photo: Rolv Christian Topdahl / news – Then they replied that they did not know about our case at that time, despite the fact that I had called them and sent them an e-mail about the case already on January 2, says the wife to news. news has seen this e-mail, which was answered by the head of department at Unilabs’ department in Drammen on 4 January. news has also confronted Unilabs about this, but Fredrik Nomme is adamant that they did not know which radiologist was involved when they spoke to news. Mistakes also happen in Norway Radiologists in Norway and other countries make mistakes and blunders from time to time. This is shown by news’s own surveys, and this is shown by international research. Errors are made in 3 to 5 percent of all radiological analyses, according to a research article from 2016. And in some more specific studies, the error rate is higher. However, it is not just the error itself that Henrik reacts to. – What scares me the most is the way they explain things away. I hope that the case will have consequences for both Unilabs and Drammen Hospital, says Henrik. Head of department Gro Vik Knutsen says Drammen hospital is very understanding that Henrik questions why the tumor in the eye was not discovered earlier.
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“Henrik” lost his eye – state administrator opens inspection of Unilabs – news Rogaland – Local news, TV and radio
