Alleged hospital blunder leaves Melbourne boy with horrific injury

A Melbourne mother alleges a catastrophic error at a hospital has left her son with an injury far worse than the one he was admitted with.

Samah Issa’s now-14-year-old son fell onto a crochet hook in March 2024, impaling his hand in a gruesome but salvageable accident.

Doctors at the Northern Hospital removed the hook without permanent damage after six hours spent in emergency, and Issa considered herself and her son lucky.

But when a staff member washed out the wound, her son was left in excruciating pain.

“He started to show me... ‘Mum I feel my hand burning’, and the skin melted from inside,” Issa told 9News.

“I kept telling them something [was] wrong and they ignored me.”

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According to medical records, her son’s hand was washed out with alcoholic chlorhexidine, a pink liquid used to disinfect skin before surgery.

The pain would have been “unimaginable", said Daniel Opare, deputy head of medical law at Shine Lawyers.

“If you think about what it would be like to have a 70 per cent alcoholic substance, that burns through tissue, irrigated extensively through your hand,” he said.

Issa told 9News she and her son endured weeks in hospital and multiple surgeries.

Months were spent trying to care for a painful, open wound.

Her son now no longer plays basketball, a game he loved.

He often hides his hand and struggles with grip strength and making a fist.

“Whenever he tries to lift something, not too heavy, this hand somehow betrays him,” Issa said.

She claims she is yet to receive an apology over the incident.

Northern Health told 9News it cannot comment on the matter as it is the subject of an ongoing review.

The hospital is expected to file a defence after Shine Lawyers launched a civil case in Victoria’s Supreme Court.

“In all my years of practice this is one of the worst mistakes I’ve seen,” Opare said..