Botched op left me in a wheelchair
Emily, 45, tells how she woke up paralysed in department run by disgraced surgeon
A second Tayside neurosurgeon has been accused of botching an operation during the reign of disgraced doctor sam eljamel.
Emily Robertson, 45, said she “skipped into hospital” but after surgery on her neck she was paralysed from the neck down.
And, even though the paralysis was temporary, lasting damaged caused by her spinal cord being partially severed has left her wheelchair-bound and without any independence.
Emily, who lives near Coupar Angus, has been battling for 12 years for answers and says the damage was not inflicted by Eljamel.
She said: “I know Eljamel wasn’t my neurosurgeon but he could have been at the operation as he was the head of the department.
“They took my life away and did nothing to try to fix it.”
When Emily tried to complain she was told, because she had signed a consent form which warned paralysis could happen during the operation, there was nothing else to discuss.
She had surgery after two years of suffering stiffness to her neck, and headaches. An MRI scan showed herniated discs in her neck.
Just two hours after she returned home, a neurosurgical registrar called and made an appointment for her to see a neurosurgeon a few days later.
She was told in the meantime she should sit down and not do much because “if you sneeze or trip over your own feet you could end up paralysed and there would be nothing we could do about it”. In March 2012, about two months later, she had surgery.
Emily said: “Although I had compression on the spinal cord I literally skipped into Ninewells Hospital. There was nothing wrong with me.
“But I woke up after that surgery paralysed from the neck down.”
When she awoke there were a lot of medical staff around her bed as her neurosurgeon stabbed at her toes before telling her she was paralysed.
She said: “His eyes were starting to get a bit watery and he said, ‘Look Emily you are paralysed.’ I’ll never forget the look of pity on that man’s face.”
But a couple of hours later she managed to twitch her big right toe.
She added: “Over the next hour I thought I was starting to get feeling back but I wasn’t. I couldn’t feel pain or temperature on the right side of my body but I had movement to an extent.
“My left side was still completely paralysed.”
Her neurosurgeon was out of the country by the following day but gathered around her bed at the time were a group of other doctors, all paying attention to the words of one of them who Emily now believes was Eljamel.
Feeling returned to her left side within a couple of days but she had no movement. However, stiffness returned which caused her to contort in pain and left her unable to use the left side of her body. The problem remains to this day.
It took six years before she learned she had a “hemi section” – a term used to describe the partial severing of the cord on one side, which had happened during surgery.
Emily applied to see her medical notes but was given an incomplete record and the notes on her operation were missing so she has no idea how it happened or who was present.
Police intend to speak to her as part of the Eljamel inquiry.
Labour health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said: “This looks like another scandal to rock NHS Tayside and there is clearly a need for an urgent and independent case review to establish what happened.”
An NHS Tayside spokesperson said: “We do not comment on matters relating to individual members of staff.”
They added: ”We would encourage any former patient who has concerns about Professor Eljamel to contact the NHS Tayside Patient Liaison Response Team for support with their inquiry.”