WAKING up in hospital hooked up to beeping machines, Debbie Douglas felt like she’d “been hit by a bus”.
The mum-of-three, now 66, from Birmingham, had just undergone a mastectomy and reconstruction – which Dr Ian Paterson had urged her to have, after finding a lump days earlier.
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Just six weeks later, on the orders of the doctor she had been told was “the best consultant in the West Midlands,” Debbie began chemotherapy, taking a drug so aggressive nurses have nicknamed it “the Red Devil”.
She quickly lost all her hair and spent six months feeling horrendous, unable to go to her aerospace systems job.
However, 10 years later, Debbie discovered it was all for nothing.
“All I needed was a lumpectomy,” she tells us in an exclusive interview. “That lumpectomy would have meant I was fit and well within a couple of weeks.”
Debbie was, in fact, one of over 1,000 of Paterson’s patients, who’d been unnecessarily operated on.
Paterson – dubbed ‘The Butcher Surgeon’ – is now serving a 20-year prison sentence after being found guilty of 17 counts of wounding with intent in 2017.
An inquest into the deaths of 62 of his former patients began this week. It’s thought to be one of the largest ever held in the UK.
‘Told I was lucky to have him’
Debbie first met Paterson in 2003, when she found a lump in her breast, having had him highly recommended by her private health company.
She says: “I was told he was the best consultant, and I was very lucky to have him.
“From the moment I walked in the door at Spire, I was sold this image that he was the best, and I was also told that his team was the best, his plastic surgeons, nurses, his oncologists.”
Paterson performed a fine needle aspiration biopsy on Debbie in order to inspect the lump.
“It was a large needle and he didn’t give me any anaesthetic around the breast,” she recalls in upcoming U&W documentary Lies, Deceit, Betrayal.
“He felt where the lump was and said this is really going to hurt. He jabbed it in a number of times and it was like having a red hot poker in your breast.
“It was so painful.”
The following Monday, Debbie met with Paterson again – who told her she had cancer as soon as they sat down.
Having lost both her parents to cancer within a year, the news hit even closer to home for Debbie.
She says: “I actually said to him, ‘Am I going to live? Is it treatable?’”
Paterson said it would be treatable as long as she had a double mastectomy and immediate reconstruction, using the fat and muscle from her stomach.
Debbie recalls: “He said, ‘You’ll go in with two boobs and come out with two boobs and a nice flat stomach.
“I was like, ‘That isn’t my priority. I don’t care if I have a reconstruction or not. I just want to be safe.’”
Hugged kids goodbye
The night before the surgery, Debbie went into hospital to have markings drawn on her body. They showed where surgeons would cut – down her stomach, across her torso, and around her breasts.
She says: “There was a mirror in the room, and I thought I looked like a patchwork quilt.”
She hugged her then-teenage children, who were “all upset” – having lost their grandparents to cancer not long before.
“But I said to them, ‘Look, we’ve got the best consultant, Mr Paterson. Mine’s curable. I’m not going to die. There’s no way I’m going to die,” adds Debbie.
I was sold something that wasn’t true. I thought I had the best consultant. I totally trusted him.
Debbie Douglas
As she came around from the operation, she “felt like she’d been hit by a bus”.
She tells us: “Literally I was hooked up to everything, I had an oxygen mask on, morphine dripping into my arm, an epidural in my spine.
“I was cut from hip to hip. I had a lengthy cut under my armpit, where my lymph nodes were removed, and even my belly button was missing.
“They had to reconstruct a new belly button because they’d used the fat and muscle from the stomach for blood supply to my new breasts.
“I wanted to go back to normal but I couldn’t.”
‘Red Devil’ chemo
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Paterson had told Debbie it would only take six weeks to recover from the operation – and she’d then have chemo.
But, due to how much pain she was in, she even questioned him on whether that was true.
When he reassured her, she believed him, due to his reputation and experience.
“I was sold something that wasn’t true,” she says. “I thought I had the best consultant. I totally trusted him, but still felt uneasy about that.”
Ian Paterson’s chilling crimes
DISGRACED surgeon Ian Paterson was convicted of performing unnecessary surgeries on 10 private patients in 2017.
He was convicted of 17 counts of wounding with intent and three counts of unlawful wounding.
He treated the victims at two Spire Healthcare clinics in Little Aston, Birmingham, and Solihull over 14 years.
At the time of the crimes, he was also a respected NHS consultant working at Solihull Hospital.
Nottingham Crown Court heard the motives for his crimes remain unknown.
Prosecutor Julian Christopher said the operations carried out by Paterson were ones that “no reasonable surgeon would have considered justified”.
He continued: “We suggest Mr Paterson was carrying it out not because he thought it was in the best interests of the patients, but for his own, perhaps obscure, motives.
“They were to maintain his image as a busy successful surgeon in great demand and at the top of his game.
“Or to earn extra money by doing extra operations and follow-up consultations, all these being private patients, some funded by insurance, some finding the money themselves.”
The Scotland-born surgeon had maintained that all the operations were necessary – but a jury of six men and five women agreed with the prosecution that Paterson carried out “extensive, life-changing operations for no medically justifiable reason”.
The court heard from victims including a 25-year-old left devastated after unnecessary surgery left her unable to breastfeed.
Police have said Paterson could have had hundreds of victims.
Speaking outside court in 2017, Detective Chief Inspector Caroline Marsh said: “I wouldn’t be able to put a number on it [extra victims] but there were 248 people we took statements from.
“There has been lots of speculation as to his motives.
“Financial gain was one and some patients said he wanted to play God with their lives.
“We will probably never know what his incentive was.”
In a High Court ruling in September 2017 it was announced that about 750 women left disfigured and scarred by evil Paterson will share a £37million payout.
Spire Healthcare, which runs private hospitals in the West Midlands where Paterson worked, will contribute £27.2million to the compensation fund.
A further £10million is to be provided by Paterson’s insurers and the Heart of England NHS Trust.
In February 2020, an independent inquiry found that chances to stop Paterson were missed “time after time”, and that “patients were let down over many years” by private hospitals and the NHS.
A statement issued on Paterson’s behalf, through his lawyers, said he had written to the inquiry and “answered all questions put to him”.
It said he “maintains his innocence of all of the criminal charges of which he was convicted and is actively working on an appeal against those convictions”.
Instead Debbie was in severe pain, and was given chemo six weeks later, with an aggressive drug called epirubicin – which one of the nurses tagged ‘the red devil’.”
She recalls: “After a couple of weeks, my hair started falling out, and I got my friend to shave my head because my scalp was so painful.
“Food tasted awful, you feel sick, and it affects your bowels, so you either have diarrhoea or you’re constipated.
“But, as it builds up in your system, it gets worse, so you can imagine, the fact that I went into chemo so quickly after huge surgery, all my scar tissue, which was trying to heal, was being affected.
“I was still getting over the operation and every time I had chemo, that was all painful again. Every scar tissue ached and tingled.”
Discovering the truth
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It wasn’t until a decade later that Debbie discovered the truth.
In 2013, Paterson was sued by a former patient, whose cancer had returned due to the cleavage-sparing techniques he performed in his mastectomies, which left some breast tissue.
After her case, hundreds of Paterson’s former patients began coming forward with similar stories of their own, showing the extent of expensive operations he’d been carrying out, earning Spire Healthcare millions of pounds.
Paterson was suspended and a recall letter was then sent out to every one of his former patients, including Debbie – who decided to have her medical records reviewed.
I was so angry and so upset, but the worst thing is the effect it has on your families…It’s harder to watch somebody go through it than it is to go through it yourself.
Debbie Douglas
She recalls: “Another doctor told me my lump was only about two centimetres, and the mastectomy and chemo were totally unnecessary.
“I should have had a lumpectomy only, and would have been fit and well within a couple of weeks.”
Debbie – whose treatments, alone, cost around £40,000 – adds: “He mutilated me for money.
“I was so angry and so upset, but the worst thing is the effect it also has on your families.
“For me, I feel like it’s been tough on them as well. They’re, really supportive, 100 per cent behind me and they’re all grown up now, they understand everything,
“But, for them to have to have seen me really poorly, especially when I was having chemo; I know how that affected me when I watched my mum and dad die.
“I think it’s harder to watch somebody go through it than it is to go through it yourself.”
Fighting Paterson
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Over the next five years, more and more of Paterson’s patients came forward with horror stories, and he was eventually jailed in 2017 for 17 counts of wounding people with intent after he subjected more than 1,000 patients to unnecessary and damaging operations over 14 years.
He originally was sentenced to 15 years in prison but an appeal – which Debbie was instrumental in – got him another five years added on.
Debbie, who worked in aerospace supply quality assurance, says: “The hardest thing is knowing he got away with it for so long.
“That’s what makes me angry, it’s that you could do that to thousands of people and get away with it. It made me want to fight.
It made me want to fight…I’ve got a daughter and two granddaughters, so I don’t want another Paterson operating on them.
Debbie Douglas
“Because of my job, I knew that procedure should be in place, I knew this shouldn’t have happened and I knew, because I belonged to a cancer support group, that many other people were affected.”
Debbie has now become a campaigner for Paterson’s victims and patient safety, and most recently campaigned to stop Paterson from being moved to an open prison.
She adds: “If I think there’s been an injustice, I’m the type of person to speak up because I want the truth and I’ve also got a daughter and two granddaughters, so I don’t want another Paterson operating on them.
“My daughter went through cancer treatment three times and I hovered around what was happening and asked questions because obviously the trust isn’t there.
“I want to trust doctors and I had to trust them with my daughter.
“It really sickens me to think Paterson was such a trusted person.”
Facing Paterson once more
New inquests going on this week – thought to be one of the largest in UK history – are investigating the deaths of 62 patients, whose cancer returned after having a cleavage-sparing mastectomy by Paterson.
Paterson gave evidence for the first time since his 2017 trial, from his prison cell, and Debbie was there watching him.
She says: “It was a little bit unnerving, but I wanted to see him.
“He’s changed. He’s obviously aged, somewhat lost weight, but actually he was still as arrogant as ever.
“I could see he’s wearing his own clothes, wearing his blue shirt and a poppy to show he’s a ‘nice person’, a good watch, and nice glasses.
“He’s got a window by the looks of things too.
“He can appeal for parole in 2027, but he shouldn’t be [allowed] out in a few years’ time. His prison sentence should be extended.”
All episodes of Lies, Deceit and Betrayal are available on free streaming service U, from 6th November. Watch weekly on U&W, Wednesdays at 10pm.