The tip of a scalpel blade that broke during surgery was left in the patient's body after an operation to fix a fractured humerus, the Hospital Authority has reported in its latest newsletter on hospital risks.
The operation was described as 'uneventful' and the blunder was not detected until a post-surgery X-ray revealed 'a foreign body' inside the patient.
Upon removal, it was confirmed to be the broken tip of a scalpel blade, according to the authority's 16th issue of Risk Alert, which did not say when or where the incident had occurred.
Released yesterday, the latest issue of the newsletter also highlighted another case in which a piece of nasogastric tube was left inside a patient's body after it broke while being removed before an endoscopic examination.
Doctors had to remove the tube with forceps.
In the two cases, the authority blamed failure by medical staff to check the integrity of devices after the operation or procedure. It advised staff to be alert for possible product defects.