First “You have lung cancer”, then “Merry Christmas”: An English doctor’s office scares its patients with an erroneously sent message. Although the all-clear followed shortly afterwards, the mistake caused noticeable irritation.
Shortly before Christmas, a medical practice in northern England reportedly scared a number of patients unnecessarily with devastating news – because it was accidentally sent instead of a Christmas greeting. “Diagnosis – aggressive lung cancer with metastases” it said instead of the actually planned wishes for relaxing holidays and happy holidays.
As British media consistently reported, numerous patients in a practice in Askern near Doncaster received the SMS with the cancer diagnosis immediately before the holidays. Shortly thereafter, another SMS followed with an apology: the diagnosis had been sent “by mistake”. “Our message to you should be: We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,” wrote the practice, which did not comment on the case when asked.
Many of those affected reacted angrily. Carl Chegwin reportedly posted a screenshot of the text to Facebook and wrote, “Another big mistake by crappy doctors.” When the all-clear came via the second message, he thought, according to the BBC, whether this should be “a bad joke”: “I don’t often go to the doctor,” British public broadcaster quotes him as saying, “and then out of nowhere should it be cancer”. The practice, according to Chegwin, “told people just before Christmas they had a terminal illness. You can’t do that.”
According to the report, several recipients flocked to the practice as a result of the message sent in error. A woman who wished to remain anonymous told the BBC she had previously tried and failed to phone: “So I went there and there were at least six people who were very worried because they all got the same message.” According to the “Telegraph” also a Chris Reed, who was actually waiting for the results of a lung cancer test. After all, he learned on the spot that his tests were negative: “Within an hour they went from ‘You have lung cancer’ to ‘Merry Christmas’ – unbelievable.”
