00:00 Hi, my name is Rachel Aymory and I'm a political correspondent at the Scotsman. I'm here at
00:07 South of Scottish Parliament where dozens of patients of Professor Eljamel have gathered
00:11 outside to demand that there's a public inquiry into what exactly went wrong. Now Eljamel
00:15 is a neurosurgeon who used to work at NHS Tayside and is alleged to have carried out
00:19 numerous botched operations and we don't quite know why, which is why there's now this campaign
00:24 outside.
00:25 So, we need a public inquiry. Why? Decades of harm. Could this happen again? Yes.
00:32 As government knows it is, keep talking to us.
00:36 We've been speaking to Jules Rose, she was the last patient we operated on by Eljamel
00:40 and she was diagnosed with a rare brain tumour but ended up having her tear ducts removed
00:44 instead.
00:44 I was diagnosed with a rare brain tumour and I went in for surgery in August 2013. He told
00:51 me it was 99% successfully removed and I believed him. I called him my hero, I thought he was
00:58 God, I thought he was amazing and then he got me back in and told me that it hadn't
01:04 been successful and I then had to go in for another craniotomy and after that I then found
01:11 out that he removed my tear gland instead of the tumour.
01:14 I don't trust any professionals within the NHS at this moment in time. The trust has
01:21 gone. I feel my human rights have been violated, I actually feel raped and I feel like I was
01:27 not given a voice in any of this.
01:29 We've also spoken to Douglas Ross, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives who has been
01:33 supporting the call for a public inquiry.
01:35 The Scottish Government have refused to listen to victims of Eljamel who have been demanding
01:39 a public inquiry for years. There are serious questions that can only be answered with a
01:44 full public inquiry. When I raised this at FMQs before the summer recess, the First Minister
01:48 refused to commit to one. Tomorrow there's a statement from the Health Secretary, nothing
01:52 less than the announcement of the full public inquiry will be acceptable. More and more
01:56 stories coming forward, more brave whistleblowers coming forward and they deserve to get answers
02:01 to their questions which can only come from the Health Secretary and the Scottish Government
02:05 announcing a full public inquiry.
02:07 Now we've also managed to get a chat with Jim Fairlie. He is an SNP backbencher and
02:11 he has said he's going to support the call for a public inquiry. We weren't expecting
02:15 to see him today but we managed to get a quick chat with him as well.
02:17 You can't take a stand and then stand beside it. I decided I had to come down.
02:23 To be fair, this is not a political issue. It should never have been a political issue,
02:27 it shouldn't be a political issue and if people are going to try and make it political then
02:31 they should be ashamed of themselves. Because this is about all these people here who have
02:35 been damaged by a man who should be standing here facing up to what he's done to them.
02:40 Humza Yousaf and Michael Matheson need to give us a public inquiry. They need to show
02:44 us that they are taking what's happened in their healthcare system in Scotland seriously
02:50 and at the moment they're not.
02:52 Did this happen again? Yes! So? We need a public inquiry. Why? Decades of harm.
02:58 [Silence]
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