Hospital accused of removing both kidneys from healthy woman
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. - Imagine if doctors removed both of your kidneys only to later admit you don't have kidney cancer?
73-year-old Linda Woolley said that's exactly what happened to her. "I was not real happy," the Englewood grandmother told KDVR.
Woolley has to get dialysis treatment three times a week for treatments that last four hours per each visit.
"My life was totally changed. Dialysis is no picnic no matter how used to it you get, it robs you of your life," Woolley.
In May, doctors at the University of Colorado Hospital removed both of Woolley's kidneys. In an interview with KDVR, Woolley said doctors told her surgery was necessary because she likely had kidney cancer based on pathology reports.
KDVR obtained a copy of a March 2018 biopsy which shows "no evidence of malignancy" and results "consistent with a benign process."
Nonetheless, two months later doctors removed both of her kidneys. "A big mistake, big mistake," is how Woolley described the operation.
A new biopsy conducted after the kidneys were removed found "no evidence of carcinoma" and "no mass lesion identified" meaning no cancer.
Now Linda Woolley needs at least one new kidney and the average wait for a transplant in the United States is seven years.
The hospital hasn't offered Linda an apology or an explanation, instead, it won't even acknowledge Linda was a patient despite her willingness to sign a patient privacy release form.
"It is terrifying because you have no choice when you go into a hospital. You trust that you're going to be taken care of," said Woolley.
Linda Woolley has retained an attorney to represent her in a possible lawsuit.
She's not yet healthy enough to get on the nation's kidney transplant list but when she is, she'll join more than 95,000 Americans on that list.