“Diagnosis: Aggressive lung cancer with metastases”: A practice in northern England scared hundreds of patients with this message instead of Christmas greetings.
‘Diagnosis: Aggressive metastatic lung cancer’: A doctor’s office in northern England scared hundreds of patients by sending this message in lieu of Christmas greetings, The Sun daily reported on Thursday.
At 3:49 p.m. on December 23, patients at this health center in Askern, near the town of Doncaster, received an SMS on their phones informing them of this diagnosis, asking them to fill in the appropriate forms and ending with “Thank you”.
At 4:11 p.m., another message followed with a “sincere apology”: “This was sent to you in error. Our message should have been: We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.”
Contacted by AFP, the medical office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Another big mistake of bad doctors”
The error did not please the patients, some posted a screenshot of the messages on the company’s Facebook group along with a very angry message.
“Another big mistake by lousy doctors,” Carl Chegwin posted, while another user commented, “Everyone in Askern got this message!!”
According to The Sun, among the recipients of the message was a 57-year-old father who was awaiting the results of analyzes to determine if he had lung cancer. Chris Reed told the tabloid that he tried calling the company but was unsuccessful because the line was busy. He went there and then learned that the analyzes were negative.
The incident comes as relations are often strained between Britons and their “GPs”, those health centers in the public health system where they are said to be able to be monitored and treated for free but are overwhelmed after years of austerity.