Wife needed 94 hospital visits after breast ops ‘for no reason’
A WIFE needed to make 94 hospital visits in a year after unnecessary surgery by a leading breast cancer consultant, a court heard yesterday.
Ian Paterson, who is accused of performing needless private operations on patients over 14 years to boost both his earnings and reputation, removed Judith Conduit’s breasts in two separate mastectomy procedures.
He had told her she was suffering from a rare disease “for which there was no known cure”.
Mrs Conduit, who had only benign fatty lumps, developed complications after the surgery and had to visit hospital again and again over the next 12 months. Paterson, 59, who worked for the NHS and at two private hospitals in the Birmingham area, denies 20 counts of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm to nine female patients and one male between 1997 and 2011.
Mrs Conduit, 63, told Nottingham Crown Court she was referred to Paterson by her GP in May 2000 after finding a lump in her right breast.
She opted to have it removed but by the time she went back for a six-week check-up, more lumps had appeared.
The woman, who is the third of Paterson’s alleged victims to give evidence at his trial, said: “He suggested I may have Dercum’s syndrome, which he explained condition.”
After further lumps appeared, Mrs Conduit said Paterson claimed he could not take them out as he was removing too much breast tissue and the “only way forward” was mastectomy.
Mrs Conduit, then 47, had her right breast removed then two months later, in July 2001, she underwent identical surgery on her left breast. The first procedure went smoothly, but the second was “lengthy and difficult” and she suffered a blood clot and infection that left her skin “black and rotting”.
Paterson, of Altrincham, Greater Manchester, told police her surgery was needed. The trial continues. was a very, very rare