Disgraced surgeon blames colleagues
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Your support makes all the difference.THE DISGRACED gynaecologist Rodney Ledward, who was struck off the Medical Register last September and is said to have maimed dozens of women, launched an astonishing counter-attack yesterday.
Mr Ledward, 60, an NHS consultant at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, Kent,said he had been the victim of "doctor-bashing" and claimed the women who complained about his treatment were motivated by the "smell of money".
At its hearing in September, the General Medical Council found the care provided by Mr Ledward, self-styled the fastest gynaecologist in the South-east, had fallen "lamentably below the standard the public requires".
One patient's bladder was perforated during an operation and another woman's ovaries were removed without consent during a hysterectomy.
Since the case 418 women have called the hospital worried about their treatment and over 120 are considering legal action.
Yesterday, Mr Ledward told a Sunday newspaper that he refused to accept there had been complications in as many as one-third of the women he had operated on.
"I simply don't believe it. If you analyse the work of all busy gynaecologists across the land, you would have a similar pattern in 90 per cent of them," he said.
Commenting on the claims of the women, he said: "I cannot believe they are sick. Have they been hurt? Or have they just come out of the woodwork because there is a smell of money there?"
He blamed jealousy among colleagues for his downfall. "I was dealing with young, attractive women and of course they hated that. I love women and have been very privileged to have had some beautiful ones as my patients." He also said his career had been deliberately destroyed to instil fear into doctors.
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