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November 25, 2024 - 7:00 PM
A Kelowna woman who was misdiagnosed during a visit to the emergency room at Kelowna General Hospital has lost a legal battle after she sued the doctor.
According to a Nov. 22 BC Supreme Court decision, Nicole Laurette Wray claimed Dr. Nicholas James Broadfoot Balfour's care fell below the standard of care of an emergency room physician when she visited the hospital eight years ago.
The decision said in November 2016, Wray went to the emergency room with severe abdominal pain.
Dr. Balfour assessed Wray, who has since married and changed her name to Pellerin, and ordered an ultrasound.
The ultrasounds showed a normal appendix and as she has a history of endometriosis the doctor diagnosed her with a ruptured ovarian cyst.
He gave her some pain medication and told her to follow up with her family doctor or return to the hospital if the pain continued.
The pain continued and four days later she was taken by ambulance to Kelowna General Hospital.
She was then diagnosed with an appendix the size of a grapefruit that had punctured. She promptly had surgery and spent a week in hospital before being discharged.
Two years later, she began legal action against Dr. Balfour, the radiologist Dr. Nevin Victor de Korompay and the Interior Health Authority.
The trial lasted for more than two weeks and saw testimony from the three nurses who attended to Wray, her family, the two doctors involved and five medical expert witnesses.
The 20,000-word decision goes into lengthy details about the steps physicians take while working in emergency departments and how diagnoses are made.
Much of the decision is given to witness testimony about how difficult it can be to diagnose appendicitis in certain circumstances.
"Appendicitis can be clinically challenging and that patients often present with generalized abdominal pain," the decision read. "It is accepted by all of the experts that diagnosing appendicitis can be difficult."
Neither of the doctors involved remembered treating Pellerin and based their testimony on what they wrote in their notes. The decision said in 2016 more than 230 patients visited the emergency room each day.
Wray argued the doctor should have taken different steps and come to different diagnoses.
However, after parsing through the medical evidence given, BC Supreme Court Justice Baljinder Kaur Girn didn't agree.
"There is no doubt that Ms. Wray suffered and continues to suffer. A misdiagnosis occurred. But that does not mean that Dr. Balfour was negligent," the Justice said. "In all of the circumstances, I find that Dr. Balfour’s conclusion that Ms. Wray did not have appendicitis was reasonable and logical."
Ultimately, the Justice dismissed Pellerin's case against the doctor and Interior Health.
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