Patients alleging mistreatment at the hands of a disgraced NHS surgeon have called for an official investigation into his conduct to begin as soon as possible. Campaigners who have spent years fighting for a formal probe into Sam Eljamel are frustrated that a public inquiry and individual case reviews are yet to begin. They claim that more than 200 people are victims of flawed or botched operations overseen by Mr Eljamel , a neurosurgeon at NHS Tayside for 18 years.
On Monday patients met the chair of a public inquiry – ordered by the Scottish Government last year – to discuss the scope of the planned probe. But no timescales for when the inquiry would begin or end were given. Richard Toole, a 63-year-old former corporal in the British Army, was at the meeting, having been invited to give evidence to the inquiry.
The veteran said he had two operations by Mr Eljamal in 2009 and 2010 for spinal cord damage. Mr Toole claimed to i that the procedures left him with even worse nerve pain in his legs than before he went under the knife. “I am one of Eljamel’s victims,” said Mr Toole, from Glenrothes.
“I lost everything. So many people have lost so much. We are owed compensation.
I hope we get a proper apology from the NHS.” Read Next Disgraced brain surgeon accused of harming 200 patients set for public inquiry The ex-Army corporal stopped working in 1995 because of nerve pain from a prolapsed spinal disc, the result of an old training injury. In 2009 he said he was to.
