Patient of breast surgeon ‘ left like car crash victim’
A PATIENT of a breast cancer surgeon accused of giving her a needless mastectomy resembled ‘ a car crash’ victim after her operation, a court heard.
Marian Moran was operated on by Ian Paterson in 2004 after she had found a number of lumps in her breast.
Paterson, 59, is accused of performing unwarranted invasive surgery on Mrs Moran and nine other patients on growths that were actually benign.
The prosecution claims he convinced his patients of their impending cancer risk – often providing them with no alternative to major surgery – in order to feed his ego and ‘earn extra money’.
Eamon Moran, her husband, said in a statement read out to Nottingham Crown Court yesterday that the couple were told she had ‘pre- cancerous lumps’ which should be removed ‘sooner rather than later’. Mr Moran, a retired publican, said he was ‘shocked and horrified’ when he saw his wife at the private Spire Parkway Hospital in the West Midlands after her mastectomy.
He said: ‘She looked like she had been involved in a major car crash. It was so bad that I refused [to let] Marian’s parents go and see her; it would have been too much for them to witness. [It was the] same for my daughter.
‘I remember sitting in the car park that night. I shed a tear because it upset me so much... I had agreed to the operation.’ Mrs Moran, now aged 68, was 49 in 1998 when she first went to see her GP about a lump in her breast, with a mammogram proving inconclusive.
She told the jury that the ‘charming’ Paterson suggested removing her lumps over fears they could develop into cancer.
She said: ‘Whatever Mr Paterson said, I would have gone along with. In my opinion he was at the top of his profession. He said it was pre-cancerous.’
She had a mastectomy in her left breast, performed by Paterson, with reconstruction with skin from her abdomen by a plastic surgeon. In cross-examination by defence QC Nicholas Johnson, Mrs Moran admitted she couldn’t remember much of the incident and had ‘buried’ it in her mind.
The couple from Solihull, West Midlands, were recalled to the hospital years later by a separate doctor who informed them that the ‘precancerous growths’ were actually ‘little warts’.
Mrs Moran said she would ‘certainly not’ have had the operations if she had known they were not necessary.
A medical expert told the court that ‘no reasonable group of surgeons’ would have performed a mastectomy on Mrs Moran.
Consultant oncoplastic breast surgeon Professor Philip Drew told the courtroom: ‘Based on all the evidence so far, it is more likely than not that she would not have developed breast cancer.’
Paterson, who was formerly employed by Heart of England NHS Trust and also practised at Spire Healthcare, is standing trial after denying 20 counts of wounding with intent against nine women and one man between 1997 and 2011. The doctor, of Altrincham, Greater Manchester, denies all counts. The trial continues.