A Gruenthal, Sask., boy is recovering from burns he received from having a cast removed.
Eli McWalter, 12, fractured his left thumb in a tobogganing accident in mid-January.
He received a fibreglass cast after a visit to a Warman, Sask., clinic.
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Weeks later he returned to get the cast removed from the same doctor, who used a special saw to take it off.
“Midway he had to stop because (the saw) was overheating. And the time before it was overheating, I was feeling quite a bit of pain,” McWalter recalled.
When the cast came off, his arm appeared burned.
“On the line where the saw went down, it looked like white plastic, waxy-type skin,” McWalter’s mother, Sheri Wollf, said.
“I asked, ‘what is this?’ His response was, ‘it’s nothing. Go home, put a dressing on it.’ That was the explanation that I received.”
WATCH BELOW: Sheri Wollf is upset about burns left on son’s arm during a cast removal
After the procedure Wollf took her son to their family doctor. She was told he had suffered second-degree burns.
“We can’t be having children go in for cast removals and ending up with severe burns. That’s not acceptable,” Wollf said.
The doctor at the clinic who performed the cast removal declined Global News’ request for an interview.
Wollf said she filed a complaint with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan.
The College uses complaints to resolve misunderstandings, improve the quality of care, and prevent the same issue from happening in the future.
She also gave a letter to the clinic describing what happened the day after the procedure.
“Because I’m still a kid it will be healing, but I’ll have a white, bumpy kind of mark on my skin in ten years,” McWalter said.
“We do hold physicians in a sort of elevated place in society. And we sort of assume that when they tell us something, we need to listen to it. I feel really badly,” Wollf said.
“There needs to be some accountability from the doctor.”
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