According to local newspaper VnExpress, Ma Van Nhat, 54, underwent surgery at the provincial general hospital in Bac Kan in 1998, after he was injured in a road crash.
The man told the Vietnam News Agency he had been healthy, until he felt abdominal pain recently. He went to another hospital last week and got an X-ray which showed that there was a 15cm pair of scissors in his abdomen. Nhat thinks that the scissors must have been forgotten by the surgeons 18 years ago.
The man went back to Bac Kan Hospital demanding an explanation. Trinh Thi Luong, the hospital's director, said she is trying to find out which doctors were involved in the 1998 operation and promised to find "a solution" soon.
In the meantime, Nhat is still living with the scissors.
