A PENSIONER died after a hospital replaced the wrong hip in a bungled operation.

Lilian Boorsma's family say the 79-year-old widow never recovered from having to undergo two operations in four days.

She fractured her left hiwhen she fell from her bed in a nursing home, but doctors misread the subsequent x-ray and replaced her right hip.

The error was spotted in a follow-up x-ray and Mrs Boorsma was taken for further surgery to replace the left hip.

The pensioner never walked again and her family say the operations meant she lived out the remaining 22 months of her life in misery.

The hospital trust offered £5,000 in compensation for the botched operation but Mrs Boorsma's daughter Linda Smith, 54, declined.

Mrs Smith, a school cleaner, and her husband, Dennis, a caretaker, are now pursuing a legal claim against South Tyneside Health Care Trust, asking for compensation to take account of Mrs Boorsma's suffering following the operation.

Mrs Boorsma remained bedridden at Chichester Court Nursing Home, in South Shields, South Tyneside, until her death on May 28.

Mrs Smith, of South Shields, said: "I feel so bitter at what she went through. I want to know how such a mistake could have taken place. Nobody seemed to care."

Last night, a spokesman for the trust said: "The case of Mrs Boorsma is subject to legal proceedings and therefore we can make no comment."