One children’s book creator has prevailed on he recent medical negligence case, winning a personal injury compensation award of £250,000 for a laser eye surgery that went terribly wrong, leaving her with permanently blurred vision.
Jan Fearnley, a writer and illustrator of the children’s book Mr Wolf’s Pancakes, had attended a private clinic to correct her short sightedness through laser surgery, but the forty seven year old woman, who had once been short listed for the prestigious Blue Peter children’s literature award, was left with even worse vision after the supposedly ‘routine’ surgical procedure. Dr Haralabos Eleftheriadis, the ophthalmologist who carried out the procedure at the Guildford, Surrey-based Ultralase Clinic, not only botched the procedure by ‘fumbling’ the high-powered surgical laser during the surgery, but also informed Mrs Fearnley that she was simply ‘imagining things’ when she found her vision blurred after the procedure was complete.
The woman, who was left with permanent scarring on her cornea as a result of the laser surgery, said in a recent interview with the Mail on Sunday that she had reason to believe that Dr. Eleftheriadis was fully aware that the irreversible damage suffered to her eyes was why she was experiencing vision problems afterwards. After seeking legal advice, Mrs. Fearnley launched a personal injury compensation claim, successfully litigating against the ophthalmologist’s insurers for a total of £250,000 for the damage done to her eyes by Dr Eleftheriadis.
While Dr Eleftheriadis was found by the General Medical Council to have acted in both an inappropriate and unprofessional manner regarding the circumstances surrounding Mrs Fearnley’s injuries, the council relented in suspending the ophthalmologist’s registration in the face of the man agreeing to supervision and further training.