Vanessa, the woman whose legs were amputated due to negligence – El Financiero

QUERÉTARO.- The Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) offered 88 thousand pesos a Vanessa Dib Velazquez, a woman whose legs were amputatedthey removed her uterus and an ovary after a “diagnostic error”, after going to the Regional General Hospital number 1 of Querétaro only to remove the Intrauterine Device (IUD), since it was translocated.

The victim spoke this Thursday of the offer made by the IMSS.

They offer me 88 thousand pesos for the repair of the damage, I ask the doctors if that’s worth his legs? I will gladly pay them so that they return mine to me”, said Vanessa, who is a young single mother who points out IMSS medical malpractice and ask for a response to your case.

Vanessa said that the IMSS offers her 88,000 pesos as compensation for the damage, but has not even offered her a Sorry for the damage it caused.

“Obviously that is not going to repair my damage, but it would help a little in the emotional part, because, perhaps, they do not stop to think about everything that they came to truncate (…) They offer me I think 88 thousand pesos for the repair of the damage and I would like to ask the doctors who made those mistakes, if those 88 thousand pesos are worth their legs”, he said.

Vanessa demands that the IMSS give her new prostheses, a pension increase because she has the minimum, reparation for the damage, and scholarships and workshops for her two children.

In September 2018, the then 27-year-old attended the Family Medicine Unit number 9 (UMF-9) of the IMSS in Querétaro on at least three occasions, for a abdominal pain. The diagnosis was urinary tract infection and colitis, for which treatment was given without performing laboratory studies.


She went to the gynecology and obstetrics area at Hospital General Regional number 1 (HGR-1) in Querétaro, to remove the IUD that was translocatedwhich was extracted with tweezers without previously performing ultrasound or X-ray studies.

Three days later, the victim went to UMF-9 for a lower back pain, where the removal of the IUD was noted as a history and that, without carrying out any analysis, she was diagnosed with acute low back pain. But the woman’s health situation worsened and she presented herself in the emergency room of UMF-9 and from there she was transferred to HGR-1, where she was admitted due to severe blood loss, infectious gastroenteritis and severe dehydration.

This made it necessary to provide the woman with mechanical ventilation, intubation and a blood transfusion, and due to the cardiac arrest she suffered, she required resuscitation for 30 minutes, the uterus and ovary were removed and, later, both were amputated. legs in the IMSS hospital.

The woman, who is now 31 years old, mentioned that after falling into a coma for nine days, IMSS told his family that she had brought an infection and that “she was to blame for being in that situation.”

He added that will still undergo one more surgery to have the bone in your leg that bothers you removed.

CNDH asks for compensation for the misdiagnosis of Vanessa

With the above, the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) issued Recommendation 118/2022 to Zoé Robledo, general director of the IMSS, because medical personnel assigned to HGR-1 and UMF-9 violated the rights to protection of health, personal integrity, sexual and reproductive healthand damaged the life project of the victim.

In addition, the agency stated that the care provided was neither timely nor adequate and that today the victim could present secondary physiological disorders of her reproductive function, alterations of sexual function and psychological disorders related to the loss of the uterus.

Amputation of both legs forces the victim to use prosthesisthat “although the process was carried out to save the life of the victim in the face of the progress of the infection, this procedure applied was the result of inadequate medical attention, a deficient and incomplete diagnosis and an inadequate control follow-up, which allowed the important advance of the infection that could be prevented, ”said the CNDH.

The CNDH has requested that the victim be compensated because the treatment has affected her life project.

“The IMSS must grant the victimfor life, the medical care required as a result of the permanent disability and the consequences that this generates, and must provide all the required prosthetic devices that allow him his adequate movement ”, indicates the document.

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