A woman says she has been left with life-changing injuries by a surgeon sacked for botching operations, including removing the wrong bones from patients.
Angela Glover, 51, said she now lives in constant pain after Mian Munawar Shah put metal bolts in her shoulder, during a procedure she didn’t need in the first place.
She says her injuries mean she cannot hold her newborn granddaughter and she finds general day-to-day tasks almost impossible.
A recent report found Mr Shah, who worked at Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust, botched the care of 91 patients who needed shoulder or wrist operations.
Ms Glover, who worked at the same trust as the surgeon, suffered a muscle tear in her shoulder in 2018—however, Mr Shah incorrectly told her she had dislocated it.
This led to her having three unnecessary operations during which the now-disgraced surgeon chipped away bones and placed multiple surgical bolts.
These procedures left Ms Glover in constant ‘excruciating pain’, unable to move her right arm and feel her thumb.
Angela Glover, 51, said she now lives in constant pain after surgeon Mian Munawar Shah wrongly installed metal bolts in her shoulder, a procedure she later learned she didn’t need
A scan in 2020 then revealed Mr Shah had bolted the limb in the wrong place.
Ms Glover then reported the medic to hospital bosses shortly before an internal investigation was launched which found he’d botched the care of almost 100 patients.
Speaking now after an external review found Mr Shah didn’t have the ‘necessary’ competencies to carry out such complex surgeries, Ms Glover said she has been robbed of her independence.
‘I struggle with tasks, opening jars, getting out of the bath, I don’t go to the gym anymore. I can’t ride my bike,’ she said,
‘[Other medics] said if I’d had physio and no surgery that I would’ve made a full recovery in six months. He’s taken so much away from me.
‘I’ve got a new granddaughter and I can’t hold her, she’s 13 months old. I can’t hold for her some time because of the pain. It’s caused nerve damage too.’
Recalling the start of the ordeal, Ms Glover said she was originally injured at the Trust while helping a patient.
‘I work in the scan rooms and a lady slipped out of the wheelchair onto the floor. She pulled onto my shoulder and caused a muscle tear. I had physio but it didn’t get better,’ she said.
Ms Glover suffered three operations at the hands of the now disgraced surgeon where he chipped away at the bones of her shoulder and installed multiple metal bolts to secure it
‘I went and saw this consultant Dr Shah and he said I needed some pins putting in.
‘Off we went and had the surgery and then two or three weeks later I was back in A&E. I was on lots of medication and painkillers because it was that painful. Long story short it didn’t feel right.’
It was this sense of unease and following up with other medics that eventually revealed the truth.
‘After a while I had a mental breakdown, nothing was working. We did a CT scan and found that he had bolted the shoulder bone down and done the bolts in the wrong place,’ she said.
‘I had lost all feeling in my thumb. I went to the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in Birmingham and they said I hadn’t got a shoulder dislocation so what he’d done wasn’t needed.
‘They took all the metal out in a series of operations.’
An external review commissioned by the Trust, released on Tuesday, found Mr Shah didn’t have the ‘necessary’ competencies to carry out the treatment he performed.
It found Mr Shah was originally undertaking the duties of a more ‘general’ trauma and orthopaedic consultant.
A recent report found Mr Shah, who worked at Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust, botched the care of 91 patients who needed shoulder or wrist operations, including removing the wrong bones
However, he had moved into more specialist and more complex upper limb surgery without having developed the necessary abilities.
Issues identified included removing the wrong bones during wrist surgery and the misplacement of or use of the wrong sized screws or prosthesis during operations.
The Trust’s chief executive, Joe Chadwick-Bell, has apologised to patients and their families.
‘We appreciate the review may have been a distressing time for patients and we once again sincerely apologise to those patients who were affected by the surgery Mr Shah carried out,’ she said.
Ms Glover said getting to this point had been like going ‘to hell and back’.
While she was eventually awarded a six-figure settlement from the Trust she said she hoped further action was coming.
‘I don’t care about my six figure sum, I want to see him in a court room,’ she said.
‘I want people to know, why shouldn’t people know what he’s done? I don’t care if I work for the trust.’
