4^th May 2014 [Blog No. 52]

Hello again, it’s me, Peggy

The sound recording you are about to hear and copied below is an extract taken from the consultation I had with Mr Nigel Tubbs Orthopaedic Surgeon at the Nuffield Hospital in Birmingham on 29 March 2006. Mr Tubbs was the medical expert who had been instructed to make medical reports for the court by Browne Jacobson Solicitors in Nottingham, who were the solicitors instructed by the NHSLA on behalf of the Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Trust.

You can clearly hear Mr Tubbs confirming (on at least two occasions) that the bony lesion (calcified nodule) can be clearly seen in the 19/08/91 x-rays in any event. Now, this was exactly what the Bassetlaw Hospital was and had been fervently denying through-out all of the court hearings. They even went as far as to lie about it.

Even Professor Galasko, the so-called medical expert who had been controversially instructed against my will by Mr Brain of Mills Kemp & Brown Solicitors in Barnsley did his level best to jeopardise my case. Galasko, you will recollect from my previous blogs, made a report for the court on the administration of Guanethidine Pain-Block injections when clearly he was not qualified in that area of medical expertise and should have refused to take the instruction.

I had attended the Bassetlaw Hospital Radiology Department on 19 August 1991 to have x-rays taken of both my left and Right knees for comparison due to previous surgery, that being the removal of my Right patella on 15/8/1987.

Upon my attending the Radiology Department they had taken 3 x-rays. One x-ray plate was of both my knees together (AP View) and then two single plates showing my left knee and my Right knee separately (LAT View x-rays). They’d asked me to wait in the waiting area, as they do, to wait and see if the x-rays had processed properly.

A few minutes later I was re-called to have another x-ray taken (another LAT View) of my Right knee. I’ve since discovered that if a radiographer can see that something in the knee had not clearly shown up they use a different exposure rate when taking a further x-ray. This 2^nd LAT View x-ray became known as the “4” x-ray of 19/08/91.

Over the ongoing weeks I’d contacted my GP several times but she’d denied having received any results from the Bassetlaw Hospital. When I eventually saw her she read the report to herself and simply said that there was nothing untoward and therefore nothing further that they could do other than prescribe pain-killers.

In the December of 1991 I’d seen a Locum GP, where and when he’d read-out the report relating to my Right knee x-ray. He had commented on my Right knee x-ray report reporting on the x-ray showing one or more loose bodies in the medial aspect of my knee. He said; “Strictly off the Record”, that there was something that could be done for my knee problem. I put this to my then solicitors at Irwin Mitchell Solicitors but I will come back to talking about them later.

It was July 1993 before I first set eyes on the 4^th LAT View x-ray. It was at the Dukeries Clinic in Worksop but Orthopaedic Surgeon Mr Verinder made no mention of the image of the bony lesion that could be seen in what I now know to be the medial aspect of my Right knee in the x-ray that he’d had on his illuminated panel. He diagnosed me (I allege incorrectly and willfully) as suffering from the controversial diagnosis RSD.

It was 5^th November 1996 when I’d seen a Mr Zeraati at the Bassetlaw Hospital after having a fall in Cleethorpes on 16/7/1996, and where those at the Grimsby Hospital had taken x-rays of my Right knee before referring me back to the Bassetlaw Hospital, where I had further x-rays done on 19/7/1996. When I walked into his consulting room on 5/11/1996 Mr Zeraati had already put a July 1996 LAT View x-ray of my Right knee on his illuminated display panel. He said; “Are you aware that you have a foreign body in your Right knee Mrs Barnes”.

He identified the image in the x-ray which I had seen previously on the medial aspect of my Right knee in the 1991 x-ray, when in Verinder’s office in 1993. Mr Zeraati selected another LAT View x-ray of my Right knee from the file on his desktop, he’d put it on the illuminated display panel and at the same time saying “it was there in 1991 look”. Both I and my husband told him that we’d seen that very same x-ray in 1993 when in Verinder’s Office but Mr Verinder had not considered or advised me of the image of the foreign body (bony lesion) that could be clearly seen on the medial aspect of my Right knee in that 19/08/1991 Bassetlaw Hospital x-ray.

I’d subsequently made an application to the Bassetlaw Hospital via Kate Patterson Solicitors for copies of my x-rays but they failed to send that specific 19/8/1991 LAT View x-ray.

My husband had attended the Bassetlaw Hospital on 3/12/1997 where he identified that specific x-ray (and the bony lesion seen on the medial aspect of my Right knee in that film) to Pat Hewitt, the then Medical Records Clerk and Mrs Carol Perry, the then Grade 2 Radiographer. They told him that they were unable to copy the film while he waited because the x-ray copying machine had just broken down. A likely story, what!!

When he returned the next day (after receiving a telephone call from the hospital) they denied that the Right knee LAT View x-ray (which he had identified to the two hospital staff just the previous day and dated 19/08/1991) had ever existed. They lied!!

The then Medical Records Manager, Mr Kieran Colton, had been called to the interview, where he told my husband that he was not saying it had not existed but that it was up to my husband to prove that it had.

The x-ray report for the 19/08/1991 x-rays was obtained from the Bassetlaw Hospital and the one or more loose bodies as mentioned been seen on the medial aspect of my knee had been reported as been in my left knee as opposed to my Right knee. I alleged that the report for the x-ray of my left knee was actually the report for my Right knee. It was also noted that the report for my Right knee made no mention of the absence of the patella which had been removed from my Right knee in 1987, and this was a significant factor because the x-ray Request Form dated 16/8/1991 requested x-rays of both knees for comparison due to previous surgery.

I forwarded the Report onto a Mr Iain Bourne (Health-Sector) at the Information Commissioner’s office. In a letter copied to me he wrote that he believed if only from the semantics of the report he believed Mrs Barnes had a case.

Mr Zeraati (Orthopaedic Surgeon) was asked by me to confirm that he had indeed identified that specific 19/08/1991 LAT View x-ray and the image of the bony lesion seen in that film when we had attended his consulting rooms at the Bassetlaw Hospital on 5^th November 1996 but he said for him to confirm that would be more than his job was worth.

You have just heard for yourself in the sound recording (and there is no getting away from it) where Medical Expert Mr Tubbs confirmed that the calcified nodule (bony lesion) is/was to be seen in the 19 August 1991 Bassetlaw x-rays, which shows beyond a shadow of doubt that I have been well and truly stitched-up by the Bassetlaw hospital, their solicitors and their instructed medical expert because apart from anything else Mr Nigel Tubbs went on to make a report for the court without reporting on these facts.

On 9^th June 1998, Dr Howard (Radiologist) at the Bassetlaw Hospital and when at the meeting at Bassetlaw Hospital Barrowby House HQ, advised all present on my case that “Medial” meant inside the knee joint (when in fact when referring to the knee medial means “the side of the knee nearest the other knee”) and that the calcified nodule (bony lesion) was not to be seen in the 19/08/1991 x-rays because it had grown there, in my knee, since the films of 1991. She lied!!!!

This true story continues …….

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