Police investigate breast sample feared stolen from North District Hospital

North District Hospital. Screenshot: Google Maps
North District Hospital. Screenshot: Google Maps

What do you get when you cross a missing person case with stolen property? A medical mystery, apparently.

Yesterday, local media outlets reported that police were investigating a possible theft at North District Hospital. The lost item in question? Er, a breast. Or rather, a bit of somebody’s breast.

Let’s recap. At around 5pm last Friday, a 59-year-old patient had an atypical ductal hyperplasia — a benign lump which indicates a heightened risk of breast cancer — removed from her left breast. The sample was taken to the radiology department to be tested, then sent back to the operating theater, where a nurse popped it into a bottle with a clear preservative liquid, according to the SCMP.

The sealed and labeled bottle was then put in storage at the pathology department on Saturday evening, safe and sound. Come Monday morning, however, a staff member from the pathology department took the bottle out to examine it, and found it to be empty save for a few drops of the clear liquid.

Logic dictates that when you lose something, you should trace your steps, then panic when your search is futile. Accordingly, the hospital staff checked all the departments that the breast tissue had passed through since Friday evening, then rang the police when they failed to locate the pesky specimen.

The hospital’s surgical team has since apologized to the patient and her family, a spokesman told reporters. “It seems there were no obvious procedural errors contributing to the loss […] and it might be due to other possible factors,” he continued.

What exactly those factors may be is anyone’s guess, but we’d be incredibly surprised if it turned out there was a thriving black market for people’s benign breast lumps.

Related:

Poached Eggs: Tuen Mun Hospital has apparently lost a patient’s ovary and fallopian tube



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