500 victims of rogue surgeon seek payouts as he gets 15 years
HUNDREDS of rogue cancer surgeon Ian Paterson’s private patients are being forced to fight for compensation for the trauma he inflicted on them, despite nearly £10million already being paid to his NHS victims.
The number of victims who saw the “monster” privately is estimated to be 500, but it could be as high as 1,000, sources said yesterday.
Solicitors have called for an end to a legal loophole which lets private hospitals claim that clinicians such as Paterson are not their employees and they are therefore not liable for their negligence.
The 59-year-old surgeon was jailed for 15 years at Nottingham Crown Court yesterday for 17 counts of wounding with intent and three counts of unlawful wounding, against 10 of his private patients.
The seven-week trial heard how he lied to patients and exaggerated or invented the risk of cancer to convince them to have surgery.
Jurors were told Paterson carried out “extensive, life-changing operations for no medically justifiable reason” and did so for “obscure motives” – which may have included a desire to “earn extra money”.
Carole Johnson, who went under Paterson’s knife six times in seven years with all but the first procedure unnecessary, said Paterson was a “monster”. She said her “world has been turned upside down” by having the unnecessary procedures, adding: “I do not think I can find it within my heart to ever forgive him.”
Handing down the sentence, Mr Justice Jeremy Baker told Paterson: “Your motivation will never be known, but in pursuit of your own material rewards, you lost sight of what you were doing.
“You deliberately preyed on your patients’ long-term fears without any regard for the long-term effects.”
Police said that when they searched Paterson’s £1.25 million eight-bedroom home in Edgbaston, Birmingham, they found a large collection of fine wines and paintings. DS Dale Robertson, of West Midlands Police, said: “I went downstairs into his wine cellar and there were crates of fine wines under lock and key. He did like his luxuries.”
Paterson’s victims are angry they are being forced to go to court in October to fight for similar compensation to that agreed by the NHS, which paid £9.5million in damages after settling more than 250 claims by victims.
The surgeon also carried out needless operations on hundreds of women and at least one man between 1993 and 2012 at two West Midlands private hospitals run by Spire Healthcare.
But Spire – the second largest provider of private healthcare in the UK – argues that because it did not directly “employ” the surgeon it should not be held responsible for his actions. Paterson’s insurer, the Medical Defence Union, also maintains it is not liable. Spire has settled a handful of cases deemed to involve financial hardship, at a cost of £500,000. But lawyers for hundreds of his other victims estimate the total compensation bill could eventually be more than £27million.
Kashmir Uppal, of medical negligence lawyers Access Legal, said: “Many victims of Paterson’s private practice remain embroiled in a needlessly lengthy and stressful legal process... if Spire had any decency as a company they would settle this now. This is torturing these poor women. On top of their physical and emotional scars they are now suffering financial hardship.”
Sarah Jane Downing, who had unnecessary breast surgery at Spire Parkway hospital in Solihull in 1998, said: “Spire continue to add to our suffering by denying any responsibility for what happened.”
In a statement Spire Healthcare said: “We would like to say again how truly sorry we are for the distress experienced by Mr Paterson’s patients.”
It said compensation would be dealt with by the courts and that this was “the fairest and quickest way to determine where responsibility for his actions lies”.