BUTCHER SURGEON VICTIMS ARE LEFT PENNILESS
Outrage as hundreds of private patients are refused compensation
HUNDREDS of victims of a Scottish breast surgeon have been forced to take legal action against private hospitals that are refusing to compensate them for needless operations.
Patients treated by Glasgow-born Ian Paterson have been told by health chiefs that the hospitals where he performed the botched surgeries, mainly on women, are not responsible for his actions.
The Medical Defence Union (MDU) – which provides professional indemnity against legal claims – has also refused to pay out
because a clause in the disgraced surgeon’s policy said he was not covered in the event of a criminal conviction.
Paterson, 59, was jailed for 15 years in May. He was found guilty of 17 charges of wounding with intent and unlawful wounding over breast operations he needlessly carried out to cash in on his patients’ cancer fears.
But the jail term was increased to 20 years last Thursday by Court of Appeal judges, who ruled that the original sentence had been ‘unduly lenient’.
The trial heard that Paterson, who treated thousands of patients on the NHS, and privately in the West Midlands between 1998 and 2011, exaggerated or invented cancer risks to claim payments for more expensive procedures.
Hundreds of his NHS victims have won around £18million in compensation from the public purse. But 700 private patients have yet to receive a penny.
Now they are taking their demand for a multi-million pound payout from Spire Healthcare, or the MDU, to the High Court in October.
Cheryl Iommi, 51, had three lumps removed from her breasts which Paterson told her were cancerous. But she later learned they were just scar tissue from a previous operation.
She told The Mail on Sunday: ‘I feel like he is getting away with this all over again. He escaped justice for years and even now he is in jail I am having to go through the courts to get a penny back.
‘The pain goes on and the system seems to be fighting against me. We are the victims in all of this and we are just being brushed under the rug. It’s disgraceful.’
The mother-of-two, from Kings Norton, Birmingham, was first operated on by Paterson on the NHS in 2003, after he said the lumps in her breasts were potentially cancerous.
She continued to find lumps and decided to go private in 2010 for a second opinion. She booked an appointment at Spire Parkway hospital in Solihull where she was once again seen by Paterson.
She said: ‘Within a week he booked me in for an operation to remove the lumps. At my check-up, he told me “we’re so lucky we caught it when we did”.
‘But even after this second operation I still wasn’t satisfied and my paranoia got worse. I saw my GP who referred me for more tests on the NHS, but they couldn’t find anything.
‘I was constantly on edge thinking I would have cancer, but the tests showed it was just scar tissue. My confidence has been completely knocked. I’m now always at the doctor and I struggle with anxiety.
‘I thought this man had listened to me, when no one else would, and ultimately saved my life. I believed him. But he is a fraud.
‘As well as the physical scars, I have mental scars that will never go away. I have been living a nightmare.’
More than 500 of Paterson’s victims are being represented by Thompsons Solicitors.
Tom Jones, head of policy and public affairs at Thompsons, said: ‘It is shocking that these victims of such horrendous treatment are unable to move on with their lives.
‘Many of these people’s lives have been devastated physically and emotionally and here they are, all these years later, waiting while Spire and the MDU decide what they are prepared to do. It is ghastly.’
Spire Hospitals run 39 private centres in the UK and made profits of £53million last year. A spokesman said the High Court case was ‘an appropriate way of determining who is responsible for Ian Paterson’s actions and securing compensation and justice’.
He added: ‘We continue to work proactively with the claimants’ representatives to achieve a fair resolution for Ian Paterson’s patients and would call upon the other parties to do the same.’
The MDU – which is a mutual society, not an insurer – has previously said that settling the claims, which may be worth tens of millions of pounds, will bankrupt it. It declined to comment.
‘I thought he had saved my life. But he is a fraud.’