British man amputates own hand

[Hum]

A British man amputated his own hand after he claimed hospitals refused to perform the operation for him, Metro UK reported.

Mark Goddard, 44, of Newton Abbot in Devon, said he has suffered excruciating nerve pain in his left arm since being involved in a motorcycle accident 16 years ago. Goddard said he was left with no choice but to amputate his own hand, claiming hospitals had refused to perform the operation on him.

?I should not have to go to such extremes to get my pain stopped,? Goddard told Metro UK. ?There was an alternative ? and that was having it done properly in hospital.?

Goddard constructed a guillotine-like device in his backyard in order to rid himself of his unwanted appendage. He then threw his amputated hand into a fire, so doctors would not be able to reattach it. After he completed the amputation, Goddard was rushed to a hospital where he was treated for blood loss.

?There should never have been any need for me to do this,? Goddard said. ?It would have spared so much distress all round, but it was the only way. At least it will give me and my family our lives back.?

Goddard said he still has significant pain in the remainder of his arm, and is hoping to have more of his limb removed in a hospital. Otherwise, he is threatening to finish the job himself.

Goddard told Metro UK he has undergone several psychiatric examinations and passed with a clean bill of mental health.

 

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[LittleNeutrino Veteran]

i would say that perhaps this mane needs some further medical attention and perhaps a nice padded room.

 

However on the same note i can kinda see where he is coming from. I have been dealing with a lot of pain in my ankle for nearly 10 years and had it operated on 4 times so far and they have not been able to resolve the issue. I asked them to amputate it and give me a prosthetic however they are against removing "healthy" tissue. even though it causes me daily pain.

[Hum]

That picture has been Photochopped ! :woot:

[Lingwo]

I read this last week in the paper. Probably the dumbest thing i read all week.

 

Plus that is a pretty poor attempt at a home made guillotine. He should have gone with a shop bought one.

[DocM]

I take it none of you have had neuropathic pain?

It can be totally excruciating to the point of disability, and often ends up with sufferers being addicted to painkillers or suicidal. Imagine your hand being burned while also being shocked with electricity, 24/7/365.

I can see how he got to this point if the system put him into its permanent rotating 'prescriptions only' file rather than pursue more expensive alternative treatments.

Score one more for the NHS :whistle:

On alternative for people with intractable extremity problems is an elective amputation + a prosthesis. Because of the improvements in prosthetics many people are choosing the this option, and just not just for neuropathic pain. There have been cases of people sustaining severe leg & foot or upper extremity injuries that caused enough trouble later the patients opted for amputation.

An example is this Austrian case written up in this BBC story about a man who had his hand amputated,

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-13273348

[Driph]

Dont know about that nuero pain, but id be more than happy to share my spliff if it helps :D

[blerk]

I take it none of you have had neuropathic pain?

It can be totally excruciating to the point of disability, and often ends up with sufferers being addicted to painkillers or suicidal. Imagine your hand being burned while also being shocked with electricity, 24/7/365.

I can see how he got to this point if the system put him into its permanent rotating 'prescriptions only' file rather than pursue more expensive alternative treatments.

Score one more for the NHS :whistle:

On alternative for people with intractable extremity problems is an elective amputation + a prosthesis. Because of the improvements in prosthetics many people are choosing the this option, and just not just for neuropathic pain. There have been cases of people sustaining severe leg & foot or upper extremity injuries that caused enough trouble later the patients opted for amputation.

An example is this Austrian case written up in this BBC story about a man who had his hand amputated,

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-13273348

 

Never had it but I saw a patient yesterday who was diagnosed with atypical trigeminal neuralgia. Amputation won't really work in this patient's case...  :/

 

Not too sure that I would blame it entirely on the NHS. The reason being that any surgeon is generally leery of taking "healthy" tissue out, more so for a limb as it is such a drastic and irreversible step. Do no harm and all that, especially as all the replacements are not anywhere as good as the original tissue.

 

While  I think the NHS should have ultimately mede the option amputation available, especially as it has been 10 years and presumably he has already tried the usual medications (and I think it does do amputation for conditions such as this, not too sure though), to place the blame entirely on the NHS is a bit silly, considering virtually the entire medical profession is rather ..reluctant to do this sort of thing. And this opinion is something that I think won't change any time soon; I think it will only be broadly accepted after prosthetic devices have made huge advancements. And by then, who knows, we may have better drugs and/or other more minimally invasive interventions. 

 

Dont know about that nuero pain, but id be more than happy to share my spliff if it helps :D

 

I would be willing to bet that he has tried. 

[DocM]

The medical profession needs to rethink its principles when doing no physical "harm," the amputation, perpetuates non-trivial psychological and functional harm. It's a quality of life issue many physicians have yet to deal with. Time for that to change.

As for the NHS, it has a proven history of beyond reasonable "cost awareness" to the detriment of many patients quality of life.

[HawkMan]

I take it none of you have had neuropathic pain?

It can be totally excruciating to the point of disability, and often ends up with sufferers being addicted to painkillers or suicidal. Imagine your hand being burned while also being shocked with electricity, 24/7/365.

I can see how he got to this point if the system put him into its permanent rotating 'prescriptions only' file rather than pursue more expensive alternative treatments.

Score one more for the NHS :whistle:

 

 

 

Don't be an idiot. 

 

If you knew anything about european health care systems you would know that this has nothing to do with budgets and cheaper treatments, in fact an amputation would have been cheaper for them than the constant treatment and probably surgeries he's gone through. 

 

As Geoffrey above said, Doctors don't want to amputate healthy flesh, of course then there's the distinction about when you consider it healthy anymore...

 

You also don't know what the hospitals has been doing to treat him, the article doesn't say anything about that, just that they refused amputation. 

The medical profession needs to rethink its principles when doing no physical "harm," the amputation, perpetuates non-trivial psychological and functional harm. It's a quality of life issue many physicians have yet to deal with. Time for that to change.

As for the NHS, it has a proven history of beyond reasonable "cost awareness" to the detriment of many patients quality of life.

 

You base that on your extensive exprience with the NHS as a brittish citizen or based on anectodal and occasionaly new coverage of individual cases ?

 

yeah, it's not perfect. but it's a damn sight better than most alternatives, especially if the alternative is pay yourself and insurance. 

[DocM]

His hand was anything but healthy flesh, and generic opiates are cheaper than surgery and fitting appropriate prosthetics. I know prosthetics, I have one.

Limiting services is how your system works, to a fault. The criticisms are all over your own media, with rationing of surgeries for hernias, cataracts and other surgical needs even Medicare and Medicaid patients routinely get here. Accept it.

[FloatingFatMan]

Score one more for the NHS :whistle:

 

Well, we never claimed it was perfect; just better than your system! :p

 

This guy IS an idiot though... I can understand the agony he was in, but to chop it off himself was just stupid.

[DocM]

Pain often causes people to do desperate things, especially when one repeatedly asks for help and is denied.

As for our system, it has its problems but those holes could be fixed without copying large parts of a failing system.

[leesmithg]

That axe doesn't look very sharp.

 

He should had put his hand in the freezer for half hour then got out a junior hacksaw to do the job.

[FloatingFatMan]

As for our system, it has its problems but those holes could be fixed without copying large parts of a failing system.

 

The NHS is far from failing. You only ever see the bad things in the media because who the hell reports GOOD news?

 

My father in law was diagnosed with prostate cancer just before Christmas. They had him on the table within a few days and all the cancerous cells removed lickety split.  He's doing just great and that's thanks to the NHS.  They also fixed my dad up a couple of years ago who almost died from some kind of bowel disease.  Oh, and they took good care of my mum for the 10 years it took Alzeimers to kill her.

 

The NHS isn't perfect, it makes mistakes, but it works.  In far more cases than it fails in.

[Shiranui]

Gotta hand it to him. He really deserves a hand for taking things into his own hands like that.

On the other hand, it could have been handled better.

[HawkMan]

His hand was anything but healthy flesh, and generic opiates are cheaper than surgery and fitting appropriate prosthetics. I know prosthetics, I have one.

Limiting services is how your system works, to a fault. The criticisms are all over your own media, with rationing of surgeries for hernias, cataracts and other surgical needs even Medicare and Medicaid patients routinely get here. Accept it.

 

How many people over inthe US who aren't rich, would be given a million dollars worth of life EXTENDING medication for free every year... that's right. 

 

and you're ignorign the fatc he may have had several expensive surgeries as well. selective reading ?

[DocM]

The NHS is far from failing. You only ever see the bad things in the media because who the hell reports GOOD news?

>

The NHS isn't perfect, it makes mistakes, but it works. In far more cases than it fails in.

The bad news can't all be blamed on the messenger. The whole smoke & fire thing.

Then explain the lower cancer 5 year survival vs the US or even the rest of Europe? Those reports haven't changed much in over 20 years. There's a UK cancer outcomes conference in June, so we'll see what comes of that.

[DocM]

The vast majority, regardless of what you've heard.

Adequate results, or lack of them, was his problem.

[FloatingFatMan]

Gotta hand it to him. He really deserves a hand for taking things into his own hands like that.

On the other hand, it could have been handled better.

 

You sir, deserve a hand! Or maybe a slap... Not sure which. ;)

[He's Dead Jim]

Poor guy, obviously in a severe level of distress before doing this self mutilation.

[FloatingFatMan]

The bad news can't all be blamed on the messenger. The whole smoke & fire thing.

Then explain the lower cancer 5 year survival vs the US or even the rest of Europe? Those reports haven't changed much in over 20 years. There's a UK cancer outcomes conference in June, so we'll see what comes of that.

 

Again, I never said it was perfect; some things DO need fixing. But also again, the media only ever reports BAD news, so when your only point of info on something IS that media, of course you'll get a bad impression of it.

 

On the other hand, if you were a Brit and using the NHS, you'd have a very high chance of getting a good experience.

[Dotdot]

Blokes an idiot. Simples!

[T3X4S]

If it were over in the US, my first thought would be the surgeons dont want to remove it out of fear of a lawsuit.  That seems to be a chief motivator for many decisions in the medical field.  But in this case, I would like to know more about the story before I could base any opinion -  hard to place blame or judgement when you only know a fraction of the story... although apparently that hasnt stopped some from making rash judgements.

[DocM]

If the reason is good and informed consent is given many US surgeons will do elective amputations, and acceptanceis increasing as better prosthetics become available.

When I had my leg amptation there were 3 electives in the rehab center, one hand and 2 lower limbs.

Both lower limbs were healed ankle/foot fusions after crush injuries. The leg prosthesis gave them back an ankle with 3-axis motion and a modern, flexible foot with a wide range of motion (similar to mine.)

Run? Yep. Power return on steps? Yep. Adapt to irregular surfaces? Yep. They traded up.

The hand patient was like this man, his hand was essentially useless as is. He received a modern semi-robotic hand. He was happy as a clam.

[Dick Montage]

Goddard told Metro UK he has undergone several psychiatric examinations and passed with a clean bill of mental health.

 

I question this...