An Aberdeen mum has described how she went from “living to existing” after a botched surgery.
Donna Porter had a five-year-old son, Travis, when she went for surgery at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary to treat an issue causing fluid to gather in her spine.
At the time, the 41-year-old had a physical job “jumping in and out of helicopters” at the airport and enjoyed going out with her friends.
But more than a decade on – and fresh from another three-month stay in hospital after falling from her wheelchair – Miss Porter said she feels like she is “at the mercy of carers”.
Miss Porter was treated by neurosurgeon Emmanuel Labram – who was later struck off for an unrelated case in which he lied to a patient about removing her brain tumour.
Labram lied to colleagues and even forged documents to keep up the lie – and by the time it emerged in 2010 that the tumour had not been fully removed, it was inoperable.
After he was struck off in 2013, other cases emerged – including Janis Kukucs, a spinal tumour patient left unable to walk. He tried to raise a case against the disgraced surgeon, but ran out of time after waiting to see if he ever would walk again.
Miss Porter says her own case was dismissed by insurers.
She had previously been successfully operated on by Labram, so took it as “gospel” when he told her not to worry about the 2008 procedure – telling her she’d be in hospital for five days.
She had no idea as she parked her car and walked into ARI that she would be unable to walk back out.
‘This is permanent’
Waking up in the hospital bed, she said she thought to herself: “Is there something wrong that I can’t move my arm or my leg? Is it trapped under something?”
Shortly after, a nurse came in to tell her the operation had not gone to plan.
“Alarm bells started ringing from there.
“He never once said anything that there could be a wheelchair at the end of it,” she said.
“My parents had just passed the year before and my son was only five – I would never have risked being stuck in a wheelchair.”
Miss Porter claims that she was then told by Labram not to panic and that physiotherapy at Woodend Hospital would mean ‘everything will come back’.
“Again, I just took his word for it,” she said.
“It was the doctor at Woodend who said ‘you do realise that we can’t get you back to the way you were’.
“‘This is permanent and we can only try and make things a bit easier for you.
“The shock was just unbelievable – I just didn’t know how I was going to cope but when you are a mother you have just got to adjust.
“I stopped living and started existing.”
“Every part of my life changed. I would have gone back to work, I liked going out and doing stuff with my friends – nothing’s the same.”
“I’ve missed out on a lot and my son has missed out on a lot and that’s what drains me more than anything else.”
‘He laughed at me’
Miss Porter said her first surgery with Labram “went great” and she received “brilliant aftercare”.
But after her second operation, she claims he was “reluctant” to go near her bed and that at the follow-up appointments, he had laughed at her.
She said: “He would say ‘oh come on Donna, you knew this could happen, it must be your memory’ and he was smiling. I was so annoyed.
“Because I put a complaint into the hospital about him, every appointment after that I was taking someone from an advocacy service.
“Even the guy from advocacy came out the door and said ‘I wanted to smack his face'”.
Not long after Miss Porter was transferred to a second surgeon for her follow up appointments.
“What a cheek. It was either because he couldn’t look me in the eye or because I was kicking up too much fuss every time that I went,” she said.
After realising her life would never be the same again, Miss Porter attempted to take legal action to get compensation.
However, she claims Labram told “loads of lies” and insisted he had made his patient aware of the risks. Miss Porter was not believed, and the insurance company dismissed her claim.
She added: “The insurance wrote back and said to me I was warned beforehand, which I wasn’t or there is no way I would have done it.”
“I think there is going to be lots of people out there that have been operated on by him, thinking they are crazy.
“Everyday I wish I could go back. He said he would make things easier for me, that’s what the operation was for.
“And I am going to get worse every year.”
A spokeswoman for NHS Grampian said: “This person has not been an employee of NHS Grampian for some time.”