OSLO, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- A total of 355 patients in Norway were operated without it being necessary or correct in the period of 2013 to 2017, local online newspaper Norway Today reported on Tuesday.
In the five years, the Norwegian Patient Injury Compensation (NPE) paid almost 140 million kroner (17 million U.S. dollars) to the Norwegian patients who should never have been operated.
Most cases concern treatment in the public health services. Of the cases, 56 percent of the patients were women and 44 percent were men, the report said.
In four of the 355 cases, the surgery led to the death of the patients, it said.
"We are evaluating many examples of operations that should not have been undertaken, because surgery was not the best treatment solution for the patient," Rolf Gunnar Jorstad, director general of the NPE, was quoted as saying.
Among the patients who have been operated on, a woman had her ovaries mistakenly removed, thus losing the opportunity to have her own children.
Another patient received obesity surgery without there being enough grounds for it, and lost her spleen during surgery.
