United Christian Hospital yesterday denied that a lens fragment found in the eye of a patient after undergoing a cataract operation meant there had been a blunder.
'It's a type of complication that there are retained lens fragments after a cataract operation. It's a known complication recorded in medical records,' Dr Joseph Lui Cho-ze, chief executive of the Kowloon East group of hospitals, said yesterday.
The 56-year-old patient underwent a cataract operation at the hospital on August 9.
His doctor did not discover the retained lens fragment when examined the patient on August 10 and 17. But he noticed a fragment smaller than 2mm in the patient's eye during a third consultation on August 31.
The hospital arranged another operation for the patient on September 2 to remove the fragment. The patient's eyesight had not been adversely affected.
Liu said leaving lens fragments after a cataract operation was not common, but sometimes the fragments were too small to be seen easily.