Year 25 Day 129
Tragedy struck last week after an apparent routine operation critically failed, permanently fusing the cybernetic arm to a patient. The patient, who remains anonymous due to galactic privacy laws, underwent the procedure on a Nebulon Frigate, the Back Alley Ripperdoc, located in an unregistered asteroid field. While this would worry some, the patient had great confidence due to the skill of the team, as he had hired famed Surgeon Dr. Patrick Kil`astra, who, according to billing records acquired by the Shadowfeed, has performed the operations innumerable times, including on the Magistrate of the South Siejo Kutol.
Even with Dr. Kil`astra’s experience, there is some concern amongst the locals that the standard protocols may have not been followed in an effort to save cost on taxes, which could have lead to this grievous medical error. Upon official inquiry, it does not appear that informed consent was completely obtained, and the full risks of the procedure not adequately explained by the surgery team.
“We knew something was wrong when the cybernetic limb would not respond appropriately.” Explained an anonymous nurse, who works with Dr. Kil`astra’s team. “Either flopping around uselessly or even striking the patient repeatedly in the head, it was obvious something went wrong. This never happened under Troika!’
It is unclear what will happen with the patient. A droid was not used to hack the medical records of the MoH, but some reports suggested that the initial procedure alone cost upward of 41,000,000 cr and the patient was not covered under the Troika Healthcare Initiative. Several emergency procedures, each costing almost 62,000,000 cr to ascertain the damage and attempt to remove the faulty limb have already failed. So far, over 200,000,000 cr has reportedly been billed and the patient is still without an arm. Who is going to pay for these surgeries is still unclear and the patient may be stuck on a payment plan for the rest of their lives.
That last quote was most concerning to the local public. What sort of regulations has the Ministry of Health placed on procedures that have forced both patients and surgeons to flee to uncharted space to perform these surgeries? Did this have anything to do with the patient’s ability to pay, as they did not have insurance? When asked about this and the procedure at a press conference in Hassaria, Dr. Kil`astra replied, “We at the Ministry take the health and wellbeing of our patients very seriously, regardless of their ability to pay and any suggestion otherwise is offensive and flat out wrong!” When a second reporter asked why he would perform surgeries on patients in a remote asteroid field, filled with bandits as opposed to a well stocked land based hospital, Dr. Kil`astra had no comment.
When asked to comment on the matter, an unnamed Chiss administrator was quoted as replying with a less than empathetic response.“Health and safety laws don’t exist in the CIS, obviously Barjak Eaque resisted the procedure subconsciously. Somehow, under the knife, his mind rejected the idea of being upgraded. That’s uh.. not our fault.”
What does this mean for our anonymous patient? Will he ever recover – physically or financially? Is Dr. Kil`astra developing a substance abuse problem? Does he have a claim for medical malpractice against the MoH? Why does the anonymous Chiss member of leadership care so little about other sentients? Stay tuned to hear more!