Patients left disfigured by a disgraced NHS neurosurgeon have discovered their health board destroyed crucial theatre logbooks this summer — nine months after the judge leading a public inquiry issued a “do not destroy” notice.
Between 1995 and 2013, Professor Muftah Sam Eljamel worked at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee. He is thought to have performed upwards of 4,000 surgeries during his 18-years of employement in Scotland.
More than 200 patients have come forward declaring his operations have upturned their lives, accusing the Libyan national of “butchery” and “experimentation” while likening him to “Dr Frankenstein”.
Jules Rose is one of 111 patients operated on between the surgeon’s supervision order issued in June 2013 and his voluntary removal from the medical register that December to avoid being subjected to a medical tribunal.
Eljamel delivered news of a brain tumour to the marathon-running mum in the middle of his final year at Ninewells.
Post-surgery, she recalls Eljamel exclaiming the cancer had been “99 per cent removed”, but a biopsy of the tissue revealed a match for another tissue.
Instead of operating on Jules’ brain tumour, he had removed her tear gland.
“We’re only scratching the surface, the tip of the iceberg, of what’s to be uncovered in this inquiry,” said Jules.
Professor Muftah Sam Eljamel worked at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee and is thought to have performed upwards of 4,000 surgeries
|
GB NEWS
“There’s 216 of us but Eljamel operated on and butchered more than 4,000. There’s surely still a vast number to come forward.”
Jules insists the circumstances around the destruction of the log books warranted a closer look by the authorities.
NHS Tayside said it “deeply regrets this error” and insists much of the information could still be recovered by combing through individual patient records.
The destruction of theatre notebooks could spell more unwelcome delays to the slow-moving probe.
Patients speaking separately to GB News all credited Jules for inducting them into the growing group of impacted patients.
Patients speaking separately to GB News all credited Jules for inducting them into the growing group of impacted patients
|
GB NEWS
Each shared similar stories of reluctant acceptance prior to meeting her.
Helen Nelson suffered a trapped nerve in her elbow but says she has lived in excruciating pain every day since Sam Eljamel botched spinal surgery through her throat and faultily inserted two discs in her spine instead of the simple surgery of releasing the nerve in her arm.
The former Morrisons Bakery worker said: “Some days I can’t even move my neck. It’s really that bad.”
“That was in 2011,” she recalled. “And I’m still stuck.
“He knackered me. I’m never going to get better, I’m only getting worse.”
Helen now takes 36 tablets a day “to get going”.
Sam Eljamel returned to Libya in 2018 but soon reappeared in scrubs at Al-Nahda Hospital in Misrata
|
GB NEWS
Former primary school teacher Fay Pelloie also saw Eljamel to relieve a trapped nerve brought on by carrying home work books in a shoulder bag.
After seven surgeries in one location of her spine, she said: “The pain continued but he always had an excuse and you trust your surgeon. You wouldn’t argue with him.”
Desperate for relief, Fay travelled to Europe where a french surgeon told her “he’d never seen such a mess”.
“He told me the outcome of further surgery could be paralysis from the neck down if I wanted to try and I thought, ‘Well I’ve got nothing to lose,'”she said.
Fay recalls taking so many drugs she began feeling suicidal, but the quick reactions of her daughters returning home from Canada helped her find her feet and come to terms with her fractured state.
Further north, Douglas and Annemarie Pymm shared more harrowing experiences from the operating table.
Eljamel attempted to remove Annemarie’s brain tumour at Ninewells Hospital but after a second procedure she was left unable to talk.
Speaking on her behalf, Douglas stated the two questions they want the Eljamel Inquiry to answer are: “Why did it happen and who let it happen?
“That would do me but I don’t think it would satisfy Annemarie.
“You can’t get time back. It’s gone.”
Eljamel returned to Libya in 2018 but soon reappeared in scrubs at Al-Nahda Hospital in Misrata and has been spotted speaking at medical conferences in Tripoli.
Police Scotland’s Operation Stringent launched in 2018, but has been heavily criticised for its lack of progress until last month, when the force announced fresh experts would be joining their probe.
The public inquiry is off to a glacial start but will resume in April 2026, where 138 patients and 21 patient representatives will continue providing testimony in what is being framed as a “trauma-led inquiry”.
NHS Tayside previously published its due diligence report on Eljamel, declaring his appointment “followed due process” and was accompanied with “verified qualifications and excellent references”.
The Eljamel Inquiry will proceed with prioritising Sam Eljamel’s appointment to NHS Tayside, inspecting the clinical governance surrounding his procedures and monitor a parallel independent clinical review into the life-changing surgeries of the hundreds of impacted patients.