How Gordon Brown’s Indian doctor saved his sight twice
LONDON: Hector Chawla, an Indian-origin eye surgeon who saved former prime minister Gordon Brown’s right eye after the left went blind following a rugby incident when he was 16, came to the rescue again when his famous patient was in 10, Downing Street, in 2009.
Brown recalls in his memoir, to be published next week, how he sought his “old friend” Chawla’s second opinion when he had problems in the right eye and was about to go in for surgery in London. The Edinburgh-based eye surgeon, now in his late 70s, was consulted.
In extracts released before the publication of the memoir titled My Life, Our Time, 66-year-old Brown dwells on various aspects of his political career, including the challenges facing politicians in the age of the internet and social media. “When I woke up in Downing Street one Monday in September (2009), I knew something was very wrong. My vision was foggy. That morning, I was to visit the City Academy in Hackney to speak about our education reform agenda,” he wrote.
“I kept the engagement, doing all I could to disguise the fact that I could see very little discarding the prepared notes and speaking extemporaneously.” After the event, he was driven to the consulting room of a prominent surgeon at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London.
Brown wrote: “To my shock, in examining my right eye, he discovered that the retina was torn in two places and said that an operation was urgently needed. He generously agreed to operate that Sunday.”
On his way out, Brown asked if his “old friend“Chawla could be invited to give a second opinion. He saw him the day the operation was due to take place.
He recalled: "I was already prepared for surgery when he examined me and said he was convinced that the tears had not happened in the past few days. His advice was blunt. There was no point in operating unless the sight deteriorated further.” He said he was lucky beyond words that the retina has continued to hold.