The Andalusian Health Service (SAS) is required to compensate a woman from Seville with €200,000 plus interest after the public health system took thirteen months to diagnose a cancer that was already visible in the initial X-ray. The GP did not consider it significant enough to warrant further investigation.
The judge of the sixth administrative court in Seville, partially accepting the arguments of María Jesús Villalpando, the victim's lawyer and a member of the 'Patient's Defender' association, found that the unjustified delay of over a year in making a diagnosis, during which no further tests were conducted despite the patient's continuous discomfort, allowed the tumour to grow and increased the likelihood of infiltration into areas that later prevented complete removal.
Ultimately, the SAS is held liable for the compensation as the medical errors resulted in the patient losing her chances of curing such a severe illness. The ruling is now final as neither the Andalusian administration nor its insurer has appealed.
The delay allowed the tumour to grow and worsened the patient's chances of recovery, as the entire malignant mass could not be removed.
The events date back to 19 July 2017, when L.M.C, a 43-year-old woman, visited her health centre in Alcalá de Guadaira, Seville. She was experiencing pain in the dorsolumbar area, prompting her doctor to request an X-ray. Although this is a less detailed diagnostic method for such diseases, it already showed the presence of a pathology, which went unnoticed by the doctor. According to expert reports, a mass of about ten centimetres was clearly visible, yet the doctor did not order two indicated tests that would have allowed for a diagnosis: a CT scan and a biopsy.
The patient continued to visit her primary care doctor with worsening symptoms for a whole year. Her back pain escalated to severe breathing difficulties, and she could feel a mass in the lumbar area, but the doctor did not order new tests or examinations, even though the treatment prescribed for supposed back pain was ineffective. The doctor also ignored the initial X-ray and did not consider the patient's family history of sarcoma (a malignant tumour of tissues such as muscle or bone) from her paternal grandmother and an aunt.
By 9 August 2018, the patient, in pain and barely able to breathe, went to the emergency department at Virgen de Valme Hospital in Seville, where a CT scan was promptly performed, diagnosing a sarcoma. Thirteen months had passed since the first reported symptoms and the pathological X-ray that should have necessitated the same radiological test a year earlier.