TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — A Texas hospital is being sued for accidentally giving a child a partial vasectomy after the 4-year-old underwent a hernia operation last year, McClatchy News reports.
According to the lawsuit, the 4-year-old had been complaining about scrotal swelling that would increase in the evening.
Following a consultation, his doctor Susan Jarosz, DO, recommended a right inguinal hernia repair. She performed the boy’s surgery alongside a resident in Aug. 2021.
The family claims the doctor cut the vas deferens — “the tube that carries the sperm out of the testes.”
“After the operation, the hernia sac was sent to pathology,” the lawsuit says, according to the report. “The pathology report noted tissue from the vas deferens included in the hernia sac specimen: an unintended vasectomy.”
The family’s attorneys say Jarosz was “negligent in providing medical treatment by failing to act as a reasonable healthcare provider should have done” in the same situation.
“Having what is essentially an unintended vasectomy at the age of 4 years old is an unacceptable outcome when a patient goes in for a hernia repair surgery,” attorneys said in the lawsuit. “Moreover, the emotional and psychological effects of living with this knowledge is unfathomable – firstly for the parents and then for R.B. himself.”
It’s unclear if Jarosz is still an employee of the medical center. Her page was taken down on their website.
“Texas Children’s Hospital’s top priority is the health and well-being of our patients,” the center said in a statement to McClatchy News. “Due to patient privacy requirements, we are unable to comment.”
“R.B., once he’s old enough to know about what happened and can process and accept it for himself, will be required to have this conversation with any future serious partners,” the lawsuit says. “There is a possibility that he may have to utilize assisted reproduction services to conceive. These are all considerations that the typical 4-year-old does not have.”
The family is seeking over $250,000, and no more than $1 million, to help cover damages, including future medical expenses and fertility treatment, the report said.