The Story
The claimant said she agreed with the defendant surgeon on a breast-reduction operation and that the operation was performed at the defendant hospital. Two days later, she reported an intense burning sensation. She says the doctor treated the breast as infected and tried to drain it with a needle from outside, yet had not even placed a drain during the original reduction surgery.
According to the file, the nipple color later changed, the stitches opened, the wound broke down, and one nipple began to dry out and fall off. The claimant says she was taken back for additional operations every two or three months, but instead of improvement the situation became worse both physically and psychologically. The doctor answered that smoking was the real cause.
Why the Court Awarded Damages
The court noted that full medical records that should have been produced by the doctor were missing, which mattered because the burden of disproving fault did not fall on the patient in the same way in this contractual setting. Even though the forensic report used the word complication, the absence of complete records was held against the doctor rather than against the claimant.
The court accepted material damages in the amount of 2,945 TL and moral damages in the amount of 15,000 TL, both with interest. It also held the hospital jointly responsible in the circumstances summarized in the judgment.