A Swedish woman has been issued with a death certificate after a doctor confused her data with that of her deceased husband. The 98-year-old from Trollhattan, western Sweden, reported the doctor after she discovered her name had mistakenly been put on the document.
The blunder has led to the suspension of numerous financial liabilities and accounts belonging to the woman as the tax authorities were informed that she had passed on.
“The district physician wrongly issued a death certificate on 12 April 2010 for me,” wrote the woman on June 24th in a report to Halso-och sjukvardens ansvarsnamnd (HSAN), the Health and Medical Treatment Disciplinary Board. “This occurred due to a mix-up over personal data. The certificate should have instead been issued for a deceased male!!!”
According to a report in The Local, both the woman and her son have been desperately making phone calls and writing letters in an attempt to restore the suspended accounts. Many of the original systems are still to be reinstated and the pair says the inconvenience has cost them greatly in time and effort.
The woman is calling for compensation for the “pain, anxiety and mental suffering she is experiencing at her advanced age,” and has asked HSAN to place disciplinary sanctions on the doctor who made the gaffe.