Renewed calls for a criminal investigation and public inquiry into allegations made against a former Tayside surgeon.
There have been renewed calls for a criminal investigation and public inquiry into allegations made against a former Tayside surgeon.
Muftah Salem Eljamel’s former patients spoke out ahead of a BBC Scotland documentary which will put his time at Ninewells Hospital under the microscope.
Mr Eljamel remains the subject of civil cases in relation to surgery carried out which are still going through the Court of Session in Edinburgh.
Kirriemuir man David Vile, 48, and former Dundee DJ Pat Kelly, 58, have said a criminal inquiry is “the only way we will finally get to the truth”.
Mr Vile, who previously claimed he had been left on a cocktail of medication after undergoing two discectomy operations by Mr Eljamel in 2007 and 2009, said: “Mr Eljamel carried out failed and botched surgeries, leaving patients with life-changing conditions and disabilities, in long-term persistent pain.
“Former patients and their families need answers as to why Mr Eljamel was allowed to get away with this, who knew what and when, and why was he not stopped sooner?
“Many patients, including myself, have been left unable to work, unable to do many of things that we used to be able to do.
“There are no winners here but the losers are most definitely the patients.
“I also support a call for a criminal investigation — Mr Eljamel needs to be held accountable for his actions.”
Former Dundee DJ Pat Kelly, 58, demanded Police Scotland launch a criminal inquiry after claiming he was the victim of a “botched operation” by Mr Eljamel in 2007.
Mr Kelly continues to suffer chronic back pain and believes the operation was never actually carried out — despite the fact he was opened up on the operating table.
He said: “After four long years of battling with NHS Tayside to get the truth, I believe now that the whole of Scotland has the opportunity to see the personal misery and destruction Muftah Salem Eljamel caused to his patients.
“The documentary will be a wake up call as this fight for answers continues.
“My health has suffered through all of this and worse still NHS Tayside has continued to take no responsibility for what took place in the theatres at Ninewells Hospital under this surgeon.
“After the story broke about Muftah Salem Eljamel in May 2014 I was saddened to hear and read some of the horrific stories of botched surgery carried out by this man.
“I now believe that this was not medical negligence but criminal negligence carried out by him.
“I now want a criminal inquiry into Eljamel which is the only way we will finally get to the truth.
“We need justice and closure.
“Every employee who helped cover up the truth about Eljamel should be utterly ashamed of themselves.”
Monday’s documentary is the first in a new investigative series which will be shown on BBC 1 Scotland which will ask “why the surgeon wasn’t stopped earlier”.
Mr Eljamel — who had been a consultant neurological surgeon at NHS Tayside since 1995 — was suspended in 2014 after a patient had surgery on the wrong spinal disc at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee.
He also had to step down from his teaching and research posts at Dundee University after the interim order by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service.
The GMC later allowed Mr Eljamel to remove himself from the medical register, after ruling it was in the best interests of patients.
A national hotline was subsequently set up to identify possible victims of Mr Eljamel and was besieged by calls.
The Scottish Government said it was “very sorry” after a series of operations left patients claiming their long-term health had been affected — but it ruled out an inquiry, stating it was “satisfied” that a “thorough and wide-ranging” investigation by NHS Tayside will “prevent this happening again in future”.
Mr Eljamel is understood to have property and a neurosurgery business in America and he also has links to the Philippines.
Disclosure, Harmed By My Surgeon will air tonight on BBC One Scotland at 7.30pm.
Professor Eljamel’s lawyer told BBC Scotland his client had “no comment to make”.
