In May, 1993, after 25 years with my employer, I was made redundant (with hundreds of others). The company is estimated to have got rid of 50% of its world- wide, permanent, professional staff during 1989-94. I tried to start my own company (without success) and applied for about 150 positions within my speciality, computing, (again, without success – I was 53 at that time.) I had as my sole income a pension, but also had a court order for alimony and child support to my ex-wife, which meant that my net income was just a few hundred pounds a year. I was also provided with cheap medical insurance from my employer as the only perk of accepting early retirement as an alternative to being dismissed. It expires next March 31st, as I have reached my employer’s normal retirement age. I struggled on for 3 years, living on the capital of my redundancy payment until, in January 1996, I had to tell my ex-wife that I could no longer support her. My inability to support my dependants led to a great deal of stress, I drank too much and my health deteriorated. My symptoms were loss of blood from the rectum (haemorrhoids run in the male line of my family: my father had them) and excess urination frequency at night.

I decided to consult my then GP and took advantage of my private insurance to make an appointment for late September, 1996, to have my haemorrhoids surgically removed. Before that date, in early September, I collapsed in the street while on my way to see my GP for my monthly blood pressure test (I had hypertension) and prescription. He called 999 and I was taken to hospital with what he thought may have been a heart attack. It was actually anaemia, and after a variety of tests, including a colonoscopy which caused me to have a haemorrhage,
the surgeon whom I would have seen later in the month, a specialist in external veins, arteries and blood vessel problems, performed an operation to successfully remove the haemorrhoids.

The following spring I decided to tackle the urination frequency problem. I saw a specialist who could see nothing wrong with my prostate from ultrasounds, so referred me to a liver specialist. (I should add that I am a physicist by training, not a physician, so I then knew nothing more about medical matters than the average person.) He gave me an appointment for September, 1997, and told me that before I attended I should have another ultrasound, a blood test and a colonoscopy. When I queried the latter he told me that polyps had been found during the previous colonoscopy (I had not been told about those), that they were not abnormal for a person of my age and that he wanted to know if they had returned before he proceeded.

I checked myself into the hospital (private treatment again) and had the colonoscopy on August 27, 1997. I started haemorrhaging in the early hours of the following day, and on the Friday it started at about 6 pm and would not stop. Because of the pecking order even in the private wing of this major NHS hospital, it took a long time to escalate the problem to a suitable level but in the evening I was given transfusions (I counted seven until I became too ill to know what was going on). Because it was connected again with bleeding from my rectum the same surgeon was called for. I have subsequently discovered that a further colonoscopy was performed in the theatre, which seemed to indicate that the source of the
bleeding was located about four inches above my appendix. Despite this advice, the surgeon removed my complete colon and gave me an ileostomy. Subsequent biopsy indicated that my colon was healthy and there was no discernible cause for the haemorrhaging. I was in intensive care for about a fortnight from the early hours of August 30, when the operation was performed. I was delirious all that time and probably the last person in the world to learn that Princess Diana had died on August 31st.

After I had recovered a little, the same surgeon told me on several occasions, (once at least in the presence of an old friend who has become my carer) but never in writing, that I must have a reconnection operation (reanastomosis) within six months or my rectum might not perform adequately if I left it any longer. This was a lie, but I knew no better at the time. (An experienced member of the hospital staff, whom I will never name, later pointed out the
coincidence between that six months, dating from the end of August when I had the first operation, and the end of the then current financial year, just over six months later.) I duly checked into the same hospital on January 4, 1998, for the operation (by the same surgeon, privately) scheduled for January 6. Nobody in the hospital, including all of the other specialists who had treated me, or the ward staff, were expecting me. After the operation, my friend (who has become my carer) was told on the phone at 23.30 that I had been returned to the ward.

My hospital notes show that at around 01.30 on January 7 I suffered a cardiac arrest in the
theatre after losing five litres of blood. I was taken, effectively dead, to intensive care, where the receiving surgeon wrote in my medical records “On arrival in Intensive Care, Dr Bignall was cold and shut down.”

Obviously, they got my heart started again. The operation failed catastrophically, there was leakage right from the start from the joins in my ileum. I stayed in the ITU for ten days until it became obvious that something was very wrong. I was delirious and hallucinating during
that time. I had an emergency operation on January 16, same surgeon, during which he cut through my ileum (small intestine) in four places, producing four fistulas.

Do not click on the above link if you are squeamish!

I was in the ITU for several months with a large hole in my abdomen (about 5 inches across) and those four fistulas. I was fed intravenously for months, and on liquid, high-calory vitamin and mineral food which was fed into my duodenum through a nasal tube, for many months more. I caught MRSA and pneumonia and was very ill indeed. I was in hospital for ten months, mostly delirious, and left at the end of October, 1998, with a 2.5 inch hole in my abdomen and those four fistulas. I was not in a stable condition and the following summer (1999) my carer had to call 999 on two occasions as I was haemorrhaging from around the fistulas. By late July it became obvious that a loop of my ileum was pushing its way through the thin skin surrounding the fistulas. I consulted with the hospital consultant physician, and told him that on no account would I allow the previous surgeon near me. He found me a specialist in abdominal surgery, an absolute magician, who, during a six-hour operation on September 11, 1999, removed the fistulas and left me with a functioning ileostomy. He could not, of course, supply me with a new colon or the bits of ileum (an unknown amount) which had been lost during the butchery of the other surgeon.

A year later, after two complete urinary blockages, I had to have a TURP (TransUrethral Resection of the Prostate) operation from another surgeon. Altogether, from Autumn, 1996, to December, 2000, I was in hospital for 419 days, and on my back most of the time from August, 1997 to the end of 2000. In 1997, renewed in 1998, I was given DLA (Disability Living Allowance) with the highest rate for maintenance and immobility.

I was left with a propensity for deep-vein thrombosis, as a result of being horizontal for so long. I have to wear elasticated stockings for the rest of my life. I have lost enough of my ileum to prevent me from being able to digest fruit or vegetables. If I eat them the cellulose turns into a compacted mass which is painful to pass, so I avoid them. I have to have at least one tin of that high-calory vitamin and mineral supplement each day (originally prescribed by the consultant physician and continued by my current GP.) Even with that, recent blood tests have vitamin deficiency and a kidney problem, for which I am soon to contact a consultant. After all of that hospitalisation I have never recovered my strength or my ability to walk properly. Indoors I have handrails at strategic points, and out of doors I walk with an elbow crutch. I am exhausted after 20 yards or so, and I never go anywhere unless I know that I will be able to get to a toilet for the disabled, with a disabled parking space near enough for me to
reach it. I suffer from pain from excoriation (leakage of intestinal fluid from the ileostomy apparatus I have to wear – not an unusual problem for ileostomists, according to the ileostomy association, of which I am a member) and from what my surgeon thinks is an adhesion in my left side. Luckily, this latter is rare, for it is paralysing, and I keep Sevredol (a morphine derivative) on hand for when it happens. I cannot bend down, and have no strength, so my carer has to help me take a stand-up shower (I have not been able to take a bath since August, 1997), do all of my housework, change my stockings etc.

In early 2000, I contacted a solicitor, with the results that I have indicated in my covering letter, and reviewed at the end of this document. My friend/carer and I got married January, 2000.

To add insult to injury, I received a routine letter and questionnaire from the Benefits Agency late last year concerning the renewal of my DLA, which is due to run out in May, 2003. I gave them roughly the information I have given you above. They sent an inept doctor to see me on December 2. He asked me no questions of any relevance, did not ask to see me walk outside, and the first words he said to me in my kitchen were something of the order of “What I report will make no difference to your assessment”. It made me wonder why he had bothered to come, but my mind was on other things that morning, for my wife, who lives in London and looks after me during the weekend, had been taken ill that weekend, was unable to return home or to work, and at the moment that this doctor was with me, was attending an emergency appointment with one of my GP’s partners.

On Dec 13 I received a letter cutting off my DLA completely, the main problem of which is that I would no longer have the right to renew my disabled parking card, without which I would be housebound. I phoned them, and they told me that they had “recent medical evidence that I could walk 200 yards”. I told them they had no such thing and demanded a form (which they had failed to send me, of course) for a tribunal. I sent a letter, backed up with one from my GP, to them on the following day (recorded delivery!) and, as yet, have heard nothing. (End January, 2003.)

(Continued below the pink bit.)

The medical basis for the clinical negligence conclusion, and the reason why
a case would probably fail, is as follows:

-- The albumin count (a measure of the health) of a fit person is approximately 50. My albumin count, taken on the 7th January, 1998, in the Intensive Care Unit after the catastrophic operation, and cardiac arrest, was 10. The two consultants both stated that in no way could it
have reduced that much overnight by any medical procedure, so, by inference, it would have been too low the previous day for any responsible surgeon to decide to perform an elective operation; one that had been planned in advance. In addition, the surgeon knew my medical history, and knew that the previous year I had had an adverse reaction to another of his operations and had ended up then in Intensive Care. This alone, constituted negligence.

-- The counter-claim would be that it is not the practice of this particular hospital to perform albumin tests. Since the surgeon concerned could face some professional problems if the case were decided against him, his union would produce sufficient numbers of qualified medical opinion to support the hospital’s practice. A judge would probably have to decide, based on the technical nature of the facts, for the larger battalion.

-- Despite this, my barrister told me that he was prepared to go ahead on a “no win, no fee” basis, with appropriate support from a solicitor.

-- My solicitor’s committee looked at the net results that could be effected financially – the ‘quantum’. Since I had been out of work for several years before the alleged negligence, and the main factor taken into account in negligence cases is loss of earnings, they concluded that the case was not worth bringing.

In September 2002 I received a routine letter from the DSS asking me to re-apply for the continuation of my Disability Living Allowance. The renewal was declined without explanation. I appealed and on Dec 2 a 'doctor' called to check me on behalf of the DSS. He asked me quite irrelevant questions, such as whether I was religious. He saw me walk 15 yards within my own hallway, and the interview took place as I was sitting in my special high chair in my kitchen. He went away, and without any evidence wrote privately that I could walk 200 yards out of doors, somethin I have not been able to do since August 226, 1997. He also described my elbow crutch which was standing in my hall as an umbrella. The DLA was therefore denied again.

In early February I completed a form for a tribunal, and engaged a solicitor to represent me.

On June 12 the tribunal took place and all of my benefits were restored, indefinitely. The'evidence' of the so-called 'doctor never even came up. This little lot cost me about £1100 in solicitor's fees, none of which is reimbursable, of course.

I know of several people who are quite a lot more disabled than I, who have had their benefits completely removed, and who cannot afford to do anything about it. It seems to be a policy of this government to financially cripple those who are least able to fight back.

In January, 2003, after a routine blood test, I was sent for a kidney biopsy. It showed that I had lost 50% of my kidney function. The nephrologist could only guess why, because neither of us had at that time seen my medical records from the nearly two years in hospital. My private medical insurance came to an end. I received my medical records from the lawyer in June (some 3000 pages) but actually couldn't bear to read them until 2005.

During 2003 to 2006 I saw several NHS nephrologists. My kidneys were slowly getting worse but nobody did anything. In 2006 I requested a private appointment with a senior consultant, who went through my medical records and confirmed that the treatment for MRSA had permanently destroyed about 75% of kidney function. I began to get EPO injections every three weeks because my kidneys lost the ability to produce it and keep my blood count correct. In 2007 an Xray showed that the pain growing in my right ankle was caused by osteoarthritis as a result of a broken ankle (a work accident) in 1981.

At the current time (November, 2008) I have to use Butrans 5 pain patches as the ankle pain has become unbearable. An assortment of pills for blood pressure, reduction of blood acidity, benign prostate hyperplasia and phosphate blocking are keeping my kidneys working, but not for long. I was given 12 months, at the most, in my last meeting with the nephrologist in September. As a person who has been severely disabled for 11 years, spending three days per week connected to a machine for the rest of my does not sound like much of a life.