Veronikis: I will visit if First Minister gives assurances
World-leading mesh-removal expert Dr Dionysios Veronikis will come to Scotland if the First Minister calls him and ensures “positive steps” are being taken to make it happen.
The Us-based surgeon, who has carried out thousands of complete mesh removals, says he will reconsider his decision because he “wants to give women hope again”.
Dr Veronikis revealed last week he was withdrawing his offer to come to Scotland after months of talks led nowhere amid what was described in Parliament as a “professional conspiracy” to prevent him coming.
Yesterday, he revealed appeals from mesh-damaged Scots and a personal promise from First Minister Nicola Sturgeon that she will call him, have prompted him to reconsider.
He said: “My one and only concern has always been for the mesh-injured women who asked for my help, and that is why I will listen to what Scotland’s First Minister has to say.
“If she can assure me there will be no further delays and provides a positive plan to progress my visit, I will of course come.
“But I will make it clear to her I cannot work with surgeons who do not wish to learn from me.
“The ideal situation would be I could bring some of my own team who support me in my operating theatre in St Louis.
“I do hope that, with the intervention of Scotland’s First Minister, this will now happen without further delay.”
The surgeon says he has been moved by injured women who said they “lost all hope” when he withdrew his offer of help after what he described as “disrespectful” behaviour from the officials and surgeons tasked with bringing him to Scotland.
He said mesh-injured women had been “vindicated in their concerns” that they were not in fact receiving full removals in Scotland after he removed mesh from three patients who had been told exactly that – Claire Daisley, Lorna Farrell and Karen Neil.
Claire, who says Dr Veronikis “saved her”, said she had spent the past week “in tears” at the thought of him not coming to Scotland.
Claire, 49, who was just hours away from organ removal by NHS surgeons before being flown to Missouri for surgery by Dr Veronikis, said: “We have been campaigning for eight years and this is the first time the First Minister has even offered to meet with us and the first time she has ever promised to get involved, which is shameful.
“We sincerely hope she lifts the phone to Dr Veronikis and gets this sorted out.
“Get him here and end the suffering of hundreds of women.”