A Broughty Ferry dad claims he was left blind and could not recognise his own daughter after a botched operation on his tumour by disgraced doctor Sam Eljamel.
John Blackwood, 68, languished in Dundee’s Victoria Hospital for almost four years following his horror ordeal, involving the ex-NHS Tayside surgeon, at Ninewells.
Eljamel harmed more than 100 patients during his 18-year spell in Dundee and the scandal will be the subject of a public inquiry after campaigning by his victims and The Courier.
More than 20 years after being operated on by the neurosurgeon, John is blind in his right eye and only has partial sight in his left eye.
John says: “He was a butcher.”
The pensioner had gone into hospital for what he thought would be a routine procedure to remove a tumour on his pituitary gland.
Yet just weeks after an initial operation, he went back to see Eljamel and discovered the tumour had NOT been taken out.
Instead the former NCR worker was to go under the knife for a craniotomy, a procedure which involves temporarily removing part of a bone from the skull to expose the brain.
When John woke up again, his life had changed forever.
He says he spent two months in Ninewells, with medics insisting he could not be exposed to UV light.
John was then taken to Kirkcaldy where he spent nine months recovering.
“After I had my craniotomy I was blind in my right eye,” the Broughty Ferry man told us.
“I was basically certified blind. It gets worse every year.”
He added: “Two weeks after my craniotomy my then wife came up with my daughter.
“I said, ‘who’s that?’ She said, ‘that’s your daughter’. I said, ‘I don’t have a daughter’.”
John, who stayed in Liff, Angus, at the time, was only able to leave Victoria Hospital briefly before he was sent back again.
He says he did not get home permanently until 2006 after years of recovery.
The following year, John went into hospital for a scan where doctors found a tumour again.
This made him question the previous Eljamel surgeries.
His ordeal continued when he had to go back for a third operation, with four weeks of radiotherapy to follow.
He says he never got any answers about what went wrong with his craniotomy, or why the tumour was not taken out initially.
John worked as a demand planner for ATM manufacturing firm NCR, but was forced to retire prematurely.
John, who is being represented by legal firm Levy & McRae along with other patients, blames the events for personal issues he has encountered and admits life has been “lonely” at times due to his health difficulties.
He was incensed when he saw footage of Eljamel at the operating theatre again in the surgeon’s native Libya, where he fled years ago to avoid justice.
John told us: “I thought, what a f***ing nightmare.
“What a b*****d”. He totally f****d me up. He f****d me up big time.”
An NHS Tayside spokesperson said: “The board continues to encourage anyone who has concerns about Professor Eljamel to contact the Patient Liaison Response Team.
“NHS Tayside apologises to former patients of the surgeon and remains committed to do whatever is required to support all independent processes which are being set up by Scottish Government to respond to patients’ ongoing concerns.”
Conversation