PATIENTS' PLEAS HELPED PERSUADE ONLY BURNS SPECIALISTS TO STAY ON
Patients' pleas helped persuade only burns specialist to stay on
NORTHERN IRELAND'S only burns specialist has revealed that pleas from his patients, including victims of the Omagh bombing, helped persuade him to stay in the Province.
Dr. Khalid Khan's announcement in November that a lack of funds had made him consider accepting a position in England caused a public outcry. He is the only consultant plastic surgeon at the regional burns unit in Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital.
However, this week Dr. Khan said he had been overwhelmed by the response of patients pleading for him to stay and revealed he had also been promised improvements in equipment.
He said: "I don't just deal with burns. I do breast reconstruction as well, post-mastectomy reconstruction, and that is my other big concern.
"Some of these women are waiting far too long, an unacceptably long period of lime. We are hoping to get another temporary colleague with me and the two of us will run the service until I have another permanent colleague.
"There are hundreds of patients on the waiting list. That includes men, women and children."
Dr. Khan was involved in treating many of those injured in the 1998 Omagh bombing.
Following his announcement that he intended to quit his job here for one in Nottingham, a delegation of Omagh bomb victims protested at Stormont about the implications of his loss.
They included Killyclogher couple, Donna Marie McGillion and her husband, Garry. She was badly injured in the bombing and now wears a protective facial mask because of ongoing plastic surgery.
The group met Health Minister Bairbre de Brun and SDLP assembly members, including West Tyrone's Joe Byrne and West Belfast Assemblyman, Dr. Joe Hendron.
Donna Marie claimed at the time that the loss of Dr. Khan because of a lack of funding for his department would be 'devastating' for her and other patients.
NORTHERN IRELAND'S only burns specialist has revealed that pleas from his patients, including victims of the Omagh bombing, helped persuade him to stay in the Province.
Dr. Khalid Khan's announcement in November that a lack of funds had made him consider accepting a position in England caused a public outcry. He is the only consultant plastic surgeon at the regional burns unit in Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital.
However, this week Dr. Khan said he had been overwhelmed by the response of patients pleading for him to stay and revealed he had also been promised improvements in equipment.
He said: "I don't just deal with burns. I do breast reconstruction as well, post-mastectomy reconstruction, and that is my other big concern.
"Some of these women are waiting far too long, an unacceptably long period of lime. We are hoping to get another temporary colleague with me and the two of us will run the service until I have another permanent colleague.
"There are hundreds of patients on the waiting list. That includes men, women and children."
Dr. Khan was involved in treating many of those injured in the 1998 Omagh bombing.
Following his announcement that he intended to quit his job here for one in Nottingham, a delegation of Omagh bomb victims protested at Stormont about the implications of his loss.
They included Killyclogher couple, Donna Marie McGillion and her husband, Garry. She was badly injured in the bombing and now wears a protective facial mask because of ongoing plastic surgery.
The group met Health Minister Bairbre de Brun and SDLP assembly members, including West Tyrone's Joe Byrne and West Belfast Assemblyman, Dr. Joe Hendron.
Donna Marie claimed at the time that the loss of Dr. Khan because of a lack of funding for his department would be 'devastating' for her and other patients.
Further Information
Publisher: TYRONE CONSTITUTION
Ref: TC/0837
Published Date: 04-Jan-01
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