Sacked surgeon is Uber cabbie
A HEART surgeon who cost the NHS more than £600,000 after being suspended from his job is now an Uber driver – and says: “I’m loving it.”
Peter O’Keefe, 52, was fired for allegedly bullying staff after being suspended for three years.
But he claimed he was a “whistle-blower” exposing faults in the hospital – and spent another two years in an employment tribunal battle.
Now he has settled the fight, and vowed to carry on working as a cabbie.
He said: “I can’t go back to medicine. So I’ve become an Uber driver, and I’m loving it.”
The £95,000-a-year consultant was stopped from working in 2012 during the bitter row with bosses at the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff.
He was put on gardening leave before being dismissed. He then tried to sue his former employers for unfair dismissal, claiming he was sacked after blowing the lid on unsafe hospital care.
But his tribunal case was called off after he accepted a cash settlement from Cardiff & Vale University Health Board.
Mr O’Keefe said he was “relieved” the case had finally come to an end.
He added: “It’s an enormous relief not to have the pressure on me any more, but this has gone on so long and I can’t go back to medicine.” A MAN about to sit on the loo hopped back in shock – he had a frog in the bog! RSPCA inspector Chris Towler saved the amphibian at a house in Ulverston, Cumbria.
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