By: LaurenCodling
By Lauren Codling
A SOUTH Asian former patient of disgraced surgeon Ian Paterson has spoken about the “stress” his unnecessary treatment caused her.
The 66-year-old British-Pakistani from Birmingham, who has asked to stay anonymous, told Eastern Eye she first met Paterson in January 2005 after she found a cyst in her right breast.
“He was a very pleasant man, good and friendly with everything,” she said, “I put my trust in him.”
The 59-year-old former breast surgeon told his patient that the cyst was precancerous and she should have it removed. Within a year, she had four surgeries, which eventually turned out to be unnecessary.
“My sister-in-law is a doctor, so she made me an appointment in 2007 at the Royal Marsden hospital in London, where I met a cancer consultant,” the patient said. “She did all my mammograms and told me the operations were not necessary. It was just a benign cyst which he should have just drained.”
Paterson conducted hundreds of operations, most of which were unnecessary. He treated patients for over 14 years at two Spire Healthcare clinics in Little Aston, Birmingham and Solihull.
He was also a NHS consultant working at Solihull Hospital at the times of the crimes.
Lady Justice Hallett, who increased Paterson’s initial 15-year sentence to 20 years after a review in August, told him his victims had been “left feeling violated and vulnerable”, and that his treatment of them was “brutal and sustained”.
Kashmir Uppal, a specialist clinical negligence solicitor at Access Legal Solicitors, represents the patient referred to above and has been acting on behalf of many of his former patients since 2010.
Uppal told Eastern Eye that the case has been “devastating” for them.
“My clients feel really angry that this could happen in the NHS and the private sector for such a long period of time,” she said. “They want to know what is going to happen next to the management of these institutions who allowed this to happen. Are they going to be held accountable for their actions?”
Uppal, who has specialised in clinical negligence since 1996, described Paterson as “manipulative” and said that for a doctor to abuse the level of vulnerability patients have is one “of the most wicked and awful forms of abuse that can be subjected on a person”.
“One of the women involved, Francis Perks, she had about eight unnecessary lumpectomies and [Paterson] said to her ‘actually you need a mastectomy’ and he performed that and there was nothing wrong with her. Can you imagine living with that? All those years she had the fear of cancer hovering over her all the time when nothing was wrong with her,”
Uppal said.
Having lost her sister to breast cancer in July 2012, Uppal said she pursued Paterson “relentlessly”.
“It has been so important to make sure these women, these patients, get justice,” she said.
The patient who did not want to be named said she finds it hard to trust doctors now.
“You lay your trust in your doctor, don’t you? Whatever he says, you think it’s right. Now I feel so cautious whenever I see a doctor,” she said
Paterson’s private patients will receive a total of £37.2 million as compensation for the physical and psychological trauma they suffered at the hands of the ex-surgeon.
Spire Healthcare will contribute £27.2 million to the fund, with most of the rest coming from insurers. Uppal has said the money will help patients with the financial troubles they have suffered due to the unnecessary procedures.
“Some of the women have been psychologically injured and are not able to go back
to work. Others have not been able to pay their mortgages. They’ll never get over the trauma of what Paterson did to them but financially they will have the security.”
The solicitor said a public inquiry is needed as well as better clinical governance, management of doctors and tougher General Medical Council regulations.
Uppal said the public need to be aware if there is negligence in the private sector, because they aren’t as protected as they would be in the NHS.
“The NHS is responsible for negligent acts because they employ the doctor,” she said, “however in the private sector, doctors are not employed by the hospitals and therefore, if things go wrong, the hospital is not responsible for paying out for the negligent injury – it’s the responsibility of the insurance of the private doctor.”
The patient who did not want to be named said: “I wanted him punished and he got 20 years. What’s been done cannot be brought back.”
However, she said his sentence was not severe enough for the crimes he committed.
“He’ll be out in 10,” she added.
The former patient also claimed that when Spire initially contacted her regarding Paterson’s unlawful treatment on other women, they did not appear to realise the scale of his crimes and only mentioned that it had happened to a “few women”.
“Spire were just trying to cover it up,” she said, “at the time, if they had told me that there were hundreds of patients, I would have taken it further then.”
When approached by Eastern Eye, a Spire Healthcare spokesperson said the service arranged for independent medical consultants to review the notes of Paterson’s patients and they were invited to attend a recall appointment to review their treatment.
“If any patient feels that the process was not handled well, then we apologise. Once we started the process further, issues with Mr Paterson’s practice emerged. This meant the recall process was far from straightforward and also unprecedented in its scale,” they said.
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