'My liposuction hell'

by CLARE KITCHEN, Daily Mail

A woman who ended up five stone heavier and scarred for life after a botched slimming operation was awarded £133,000 compensation yesterday.

When Stephanie O'Neill, 42, had the surgery she was an active 10st 4lb and had a full social life.

But afterwards she piled on weight and lost her self-confidence. She has suffered five years of pain after the operation left her stomach muscles agonisingly tight.

And she says her sex life has been badly affected because she cannot bear her scarred stomach to be touched.

'A woman likes to feel feminine while in bed and I don't,' she told the High Court in

Newcastle upon Tyne.

Divorcee Mrs O'Neill, a diabetic, underwent the NHS operation in 1996 because she had fatty lumps beneath her stomach and thigh, a result of injecting herself with insulin since she was eight.

She was booked into Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary for a mini-assisted abdomenoplasty. This cosmetic procedure, in which liposuction is used, would have removed a small amount of fat and left her with a 3in scar.

But when Mrs O'Neill, a former civilian police worker, was admitted, she was seen by a different consultant, a locum. He mistakenly carried out a full abdomenoplasty.

Her skin was cut from one side of the stomach to the other, a flap lifted and a large amount of fat sucked out before the skin was pulled back and stitched.

The procedure is not suitable for diabetics because they are prone to skin problems. Skin around the scar began to die and Mrs O'Neill needed four more operations in which skin was removed, leaving the area covering her stomach so tight it sometimes tears. Mrs O'Neill, who has a 19-year-old daughter, told the court she had hoped surgery would improve her figure.

'I had no problems with my health, I was fit and active before the operation,' she said. 'I had a fantastic social life.'

Now she is 15st 10lb, has a stoop and suffers stomach and back pains. Mrs O'Neill, of Ashington, Northumberland, said she had feared she would never have a normal sex life.

However, she is now in a relationship with a man she has known for 13 years.

'I cringe when my partner puts his hand over my stomach,' she said. 'He tries to convince me it doesn't bother him and I know I push him away.'

The hospital admitted that the operation was badly performed, but disputed how much that was to blame for the amount of pain Mrs O'Neill had suffered.

Gregory Chambers, for Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust, said: 'Quite obviously she was very poorly treated.

'The standard of care she received fell below the standard she or any patient is entitled to expect.'

The consultant who conducted the operation, known only as Mr Bowes, could not be traced, the court heard.

Judge Christopher Walton, who had inspected Mrs O'Neill's injuries in chambers at an earlier hearing, said: 'She has been left with a very disfiguring scar indeed. I have no doubt it was, and remains, very distressing for her.'

But he added: 'I am satisfied that unconscious psychological factors are playing a very considerable part in her conception of her symptoms. I do expect a considerable degree of improvement once these proceedings are concluded.'

After the hearing, Mrs O'Neill's solicitor Vanessa Ashton said: 'Nothing can compensate her for what she has been through. but she is very appreciative that in open court she had an apology.'