Long-wait OAP has hip op in Lithuania

A WOMAN faced with a three-year wait on the NHS for an operation to cure hip pain that was wrecking her life decided to go abroad instead because the wait was too long.

Jill Davies broke down in tears when consultants told her earlier this year she would have to wait three years to undergo the hip operation procedure to cure the problem, which had caused her difficulties doing even the most simple of daily tasks.

The retired former Singleton Hospital worker and deputy head teacher, who had worked at St Illtyd School in Llantwit Major, had previously enjoyed a relatively active lifestyle, but the problems got to the stage where the 66-yearold was unable to get by without the use of a walking aid.

She explained: “By this point I had been reduced in my mobility that I was lucky if I was able to walk 25 metres. I had to use crutches, if I had to go shopping I’d hire one of the mobility scooters, I was really in an awful lot of pain. It was constant pain.”

Mrs Davies, who has undergone knee replacements in the past, went for her annual check-up in 2017, and during her visit the consultant noticed she was limping. She went through a four-year process of visiting doctors and consultants to try to get to the bottom of the problem, which along the way had been misdiagnosed as back pain, before she got to see a hip consultant on July 1 this year.

She said: “He was very good and apologised for all the difficulties I had been through and agreed I needed surgery. He said ‘I have got to apologise to you, but it’s going to be another three years’. “At that point I burst into tears” The pensioner, from Birchgrove, Swansea, decided to look to foreign shores to consider her options.

“I had already looked at going privately in this country and I had been quoted between £15,000 and £17,000 for the hip operation, and that was just for the operation, no follow-up or anything,” she said.

“I looked at going abroad, Nordclinic in Lithuania. If I had the operation done there, it would be £6,500. A lot of difference”

Mrs Davies is now 15 weeks post operation, which she described as “life changing”.

“I’m driving, walking, swimming, doing other things,” she said. “I feel 10 years younger.”

A Swansea Bay University Health Board spokesman said: “Although we cannot comment on individual cases without consent, the health board is very conscious that waiting-times for orthopaedic surgery are unacceptably high.

“That is why we are creating a centre of excellence for elective (planned) orthopaedic and spinal surgery at Neath Port Talbot Hospital.”