In the United Kingdom, a surgery center wanted to wish happy holidays to its patients. Inadvertently, however, staff sent text messages revealing that they had lung cancer with metastases. What cause a shock wave among the recipients who finally received a message of apology after an hour.
It started with a good intention. But patients at Askern Medical Practice have seen their lives flash before their eyes. On December 23, they received a message from this clinic located in Doncaster, England. This indicated that they had a “aggressive lung cancer with metastases”. And to urge them to complete the DS1500 form which allows terminally ill patients to quickly claim benefits.
The surgery center realized its monumental mistake and hastened to send its mea culpa, an hour after the first message. A period of time during which the recipients have necessarily accused the blow. Like this woman interviewed by the BBC: “I had just had a mole removed and was awaiting the result of a biopsy and I had been to the hospital as my pap smear came back abnormal so yes I was very worried”.
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A human and computer error at the origin of the fiasco
In its apology message, the clinic specifies that it simply wanted to wish happy holidays to its customers: “Please accept our sincere apologies for the message previously sent. This was sent by mistake. Our message should have read: ‘We wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. In an emergency, please contact NHS 111′”.
On its Facebook page, the Askern Medical Practice cited both human error and a computer bug as the reason for sending the wrong message. “Although no data was breached, we can confirm that an administrative staff error was made, for which we apologized immediately upon becoming aware of it”.
And to add: “This was an isolated computer error for which we are extremely sorry, and steps are being taken to prevent it from happening again”, can we read. Still, telling someone wrongly that they have terminal cancer is not insignificant. Patients will have a hard time forgiving the clinic, computer bug or not.
