2-Year-Old Boy Castrated In Surgery Gone Horribly Wrong, Hospital Apologizes

A 2-year-old boy was "castrated" during a "minimal operation" after doctors accidentally operated on the wrong testicle, his family said. The incident took place at the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children in the United Kingdom on Dec 17.

The boy was being treated for an undescended testicle at the hospital, but doctors mistakenly put a camera into “the wrong side,” rendering him infertile during surgery, BBC News reported.

The child's parents were devastated after learning the doctors operated on the wrong testicle.

“I was very distressed. It was an awful disaster for a simple operation. They destroyed everything and they ruined my son,” his father said. “They castrated him and now my son’s future life has dramatically changed.”

Doctors told the family that the surgery would take about 30 minutes and had “minimal risk.”

“We were waiting and waiting,” the father, who has not been named, said. “After two and a half hours the manager, surgeons and consultants came and I knew something was not right. Me and my wife started panicking, they called us into the office and told us things didn’t go right and the operation wasn’t a success.”

The boy's mother also responded to the incident, saying it was "absolutely horrible" what the surgeons had done.

"They broke my heart and they basically destroyed his future," she said. "I can't find the words to explain how I'm feeling - there are no words. Even tears, I have no more tears... We just hope for a miracle, this is what we hope."

University Hospitals Bristol, which runs the hospital where the surgery took place, issued a statement saying it was “deeply sorry” for the botched procedure. It also said that an investigation has been launched.

“As soon as our staff members realized what had happened, they met with the family, told them what happened, and apologized again at that point,” a hospital spokesperson said. “I would like to reiterate that we take patient safety extremely seriously here and also the quality of our clinical care.”

Undescended testicles are not common in babies but the issue can be fixed with laparoscopic surgery where doctors move the testicle into the scrotum and stitch it in place, according to the Mayo Clinic. The exact cause of an undescended testicle isn't known, but a combination of genetics, maternal health and other environmental factors might disrupt the hormones that influence the development of the testicles.

Factors that might increase the risk of an undescended testicle in a newborn include, low birth weight, premature birth, family history of undescended testicles, alcohol use by the mother during pregnancy, cigarette smoking by the mother and parents' exposure to some pesticides.