A BRIGHTON grandmother who endures four bouts of surgery each year to deal with complications after kidney stone treatment lost her High Court bid for six-figure damages.

Dorothy Crathern, 66, claimed doctors at London's St Mary's Hospital were wrong to give her ultrasound treatment to break up a painful kidney stone in August, 1988, as the fragments were bound to get stuck in her ureter, damaged during cancer treatment 20 years earlier. Mr Justice Rougier said his heart was "full of sympathy" for Mrs Crathern, adding: "There can be few women with more unfortunate medical histories". But, dismissing her compensation claim against Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster Health Authority, the judge ruled she had delayed so long before bringing her case to court it could not be allowed to go any further. The court heard Mrs Crathern, of Britannia Court, Brighton Marina, who is divorced with two children and two grandchildren, was treated for cervical cancer with abdominal radiation in 1966. Her left ureter, a tube between her kidney and her bladder, was left constricted. Meanwhile, a stone had been growing in her left kidney since 1958 and her consultant decided to remove it. She was given ultrasound treatment with disastrous results. No fragments passed because of the blockage, causing her severe pain. There then followed four months of repeated operations, including two failed attempts to clear the blockage and remove remaining fragments from the kidney. Eventually, fragments were cleared but since 1988 she has had to undergo four operations a year to keep the ureter clear. But the judge ruled she had left it too late to sue. She could have been expected to seek legal advice earlier.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.