Scottish victim calls for TV drama to be made around disgraced surgeon

A woman who fought to win a public inquiry into disgraced neurosurgeon Professor Sam Eljamel has said a TV drama could be made of their campaign similar to the hit programme about the Post Office Horizon scandal.

Jules Rose said those who campaigned for the inquiry, which was announced in September by First Minister Humza Yousaf, had now been approached by “several production companies”.

Likening herself to Alan Bates, the former sub-postmaster who campaigned against the Post Office and its Horizon system, Ms Rose called on the Scottish Government to speed up work to get the public inquiry into Prof Eljamel started. The neurosurgeon performed botched operations on patients while he worked at NHS Tayside from 1995 until he was suspended in 2013.

Mr Yousaf said an inquiry would take place after a review report highlighted how “concerns about Prof Eljamel were not acted on with the urgency they deserved”.

But with no information yet about who will chair the inquiry or when it might start, Ms Rose – who had a tear duct removed by the surgeon instead of a brain tumour in an operation in 2013 – demanded action from the Scottish Government.

Her call came as she revealed those who received botched care at the hands of the neurosurgeon had been approached “by several production companies that would like to make a TV drama just like the Post Office scandal”. Ms Rose, speaking to the BBC, asked: “Is this what it is going to take for the government to sit up and listen to us?

“I would really like to think and hope the Scottish Government are taking heed of exactly what is happening with the Post Office scandal and the levels they have had to go to in order to be taken seriously.

“But I would like to think Mr Yousaf would not like it to go to that level and would act accordingly, quickly and swiftly.”

She said their campaign was “extremely similar in regard to the Post Office scandal”, adding: “When I am speaking to patients on a daily basis, some patients have confided in me, they have said ‘Jules I have felt suicidal, I have tried to take my life’.”

She said it was “not acceptable” that a chair for the inquiry had not yet been appointed.

As well as pushing for the public inquiry, Ms Rose has also raised Prof Eljamel’s treatment of her with Police Scotland. She said “over 100 patients have lodged formal complaints with Police Scotland” against the surgeon.

Conservative MSP Liz Smith, who championed the campaign for a public inquiry at Holyrood, said the calls from Ms Rose and “other brave campaigners” against the neurosurgeon “cannot be ignored”.

She said: “It is simply not good enough that there has been little to no progress on even appointing a chair to the Eljamel inquiry or announcing the date for the start of one to one clinical reviews.

“It is now four months on from the SNP finally agreeing to an inquiry into this scandal.”

Is this what it is going to take for the government to sit up and listen to us? Jules Rose