When Paul Lloyd’s doctor handed him condoms after his vasectomy he laughed – now he’s thanking his lucky stars he used them.
Even fresh from the operating table, Paul Lloyd couldn’t help giggling a little at his partner oonique’s question. “What on earth are we going to need these for?” she asked, waving the 100 condoms Paul’s surgeon, Dr Johannes Wilson, had sent him away with.
“You’re right. I can’t imagine we’ll need to use those much longer,” laughed Paul.
Condoms, he reasoned, were for men who were worried they could get their partner pregnant. Not men who had just had a vasectomy.
Now, four years later, oonique and Paul are thankful they took advantage of the added protection. The operation, quite simply, did not work. And after hearing that Dr Wilson’s failed vasectomies had resulted in three pregnancies – two babies born and one aborted – the couple count themselves lucky they have not had to face the agonising burden of unplanned children.
“We have suffered financially and emotionally because the sterilisation didn’t work but overall, I guess we’re the lucky ones,” says oonique.
“We played it safe after Paul’s operation because we really did need a safety net. I have three children I adore, but we didn’t want any more. I’m not anti abortion, but, personally, I don’t think I could do it. If I had accidentally fallen pregnant, we would have just had to soldier on and cope with it.”
Paul (48) and oonique (41) began looking into the surgery in 2002, after years of frustration over birth control. The couple, now married and living in Christchurch, have two children, Travis (8) and Shannen (6), and oonique has an 11-year-old son Reno from a previous marriage.
oonique suffers from epilepsy and the medication she takes for it means she can not take most forms of female birth control. “I’m not allowed most contraceptive pills and Shannen was conceived when I was on the contraceptive injection,” says oonique.
“I have tried nearly everything, including the IUD, which caused me pain. When Paul volunteered to have a vasectomy, it seemed like we could finally end the problem.”
“Instead,” says Paul, “another round of contraception problems began. “We were living in Auckland and we had a fantastic South African GP. He recommended Dr Wilson so we booked a consultation at his clinic.
“We both went to the appointment on 22 July 2002 and he seemed very approachable and appeared to have good technical skills. He instilled a lot of confidence, but, in hindsight, he was quite a smooth-talker.”
The very next day Paul had the operation under local anaesthetic and even watched as he went under the knife.
“of course, I was incredibly nervous,” he says with a wry laugh. “To trust any individual to manhandle your nether regions with a scalpel in hand is not something most men would enjoy.
“I actually managed to see quite a lot of what was going on. Basically, he made an incision on both sides of the scrotum and hooked out the vas tubes – the tubes that connect the testes and penis. Then, he cut and tied the ends and put them back into the hole.
“The left one went well and healed okay, but there was a problem with the suture on the right. Part of the suture that goes around the vas came out through the incision. I thought it was a bit odd and even now this little piece of suture is still sitting proud on the skin of my scrotum.”
At the time, Paul left feeling confident that his sperm count would drop to zero, or close to it. But when he sent off a sperm sample to a laboratory, as he had been told to, the results came back saying his sperm count was too high.
“We were disappointed,” says Paul. “But Dr Wilson said it would gradually get lower. We used traditional methods of contraception while we waited for the all clear.”
Paul sent at least four samples to the lab over the next nine months. Each time they came back saying it hadn’t worked.
“I kept calling Dr Wilson, but I would never get a reply,” says Paul. “We began to feel suspicious because he seemed to be fobbing us off. I even saw him socially at a couple of events and he seemed embarrassed to see me. He said he would call me the following day, but didn’t.”
When Paul and oonique moved to Ashburton in June 2003, chasing up the doctor dropped down the list of things they had to do.
“Luckily we were paying the $295 bill on drip feed so we only paid the first $100,” laughs Paul.
“We just had to admit it hadn’t worked and in early 2004 I made an appointment for a second vasectomy. I had started my new job so I didn’t qualify for sick leave. I lost two days pay and was taken in nearly straightaway at Ashburton Hospital. The surgeon said the last operation looked a bit of a mess, so I had it under general anaesthetic in case there were more problems.
“This time I developed an infection, caused by the previous suture being there, but I was able to send off a sample nine weeks later and the very first test came back all clear.”
It was only when Paul and oonique spotted Dr Wilson’s story in the news that they realised how much the failed surgery could have changed their lives.
“When we saw he was facing charges of professional misconduct, we couldn’t believe it. We had never considered there might be other people who had the same problem as us,” says oonique.
“The terrible thing is this has happened to people who were just trying to do the responsible thing – trying not to have any more children. My heart goes out to anyone who has had a child because the operation didn’t work.
“I’d like to think it is only the three couples, including us, who have had this problem, but who knows? We all expect doctors to be these God-like creatures we can trust. Clearly that isn’t always so.” Story by Jenny Forsyth Photograph by John ocCombe