Patients at Askern Medical Practice are told they have aggressive lung cancer in a messaging error.
Image source, OtherA GP surgery accidentally told patients they had aggressive lung cancer instead of wishing them a merry Christmas.
Askern Medical Practice sent the message to people registered with the Doncaster surgery on 23 December.
Carl Chegwin, whose mother also received the text, said he was left upset by the out-of-the-blue message which “was enough to break someone”.
The surgery said nobody was available for comment. The centre has almost 8,000 patients.
The text told recipients they had “aggressive lung cancer with metastases”, a type of secondary malignant growth.
It directed patients to fill out a DS1500 form, which allows people with terminal diseases to claim certain benefits.
However, about an hour later people received a second text telling them it was an error and it was meant to wish them a merry Christmas instead.
“The first thing I thought was, ‘is this some kind of sick joke?'” Mr Chegwin said.
“It completely took me by surprise… It’s not often I go to the doctors, then out of the blue, it’s cancer. I’m sat there scratching my head thinking, ‘I do smoke, do they know something I don’t?'”
“They’ve just told people a few days before Christmas they’ve got terminal lung cancer. They can’t do that.”
Image source, Google
A woman, who asked not to be named, said she was left feeling “very worried” about the text, with family members recently having tests about ongoing chest issues.
“I rang the doctors but on hold as usual. So I walked round as I live around the corner and there were, I’d say, six people all there panicking as they had got the same text.”
The second text apologised for the error, with some patients getting repeat messages from the surgery.
“What if that message was meant for someone, and then they are told it’s a Christmas message, then again told, ‘oh no, that was actually meant for you’,” Mr Chegwin added.
“If it’s one of their admins that’s sent out a mass text, I wouldn’t be trusting them to empty the bins.”
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