After a first complaint for manslaughter in 2007, Dr. Maher Hamdan, surgeon in Aisne specializing in obesity is now being sued by around forty people. He was indicted in 2011 for the death of three people, all operated by him, and for unintentional injuries on other patients, reports The voice of the North. Maher Hamdan was banned from operating in July 2015, before being allowed to do so again by court order the following month, pending trial.
In total, about forty victims were identified, like Cécile Hansali, operated in 2012 when she weighed 183 kg and whose case was relayed by the Picard Courier. The young woman believed that the only way to lose weight was to reduce the size of her stomach, a surgery called “sleeve gastrectomy”. But three days after the operation, she suffered from severe abdominal pain and a leak was detected. His stomach was dead, and had to be removed. Since then, she hasn’t stopped going back and forth to the hospital and will have to be operated again in September.
Between 0.1 and 0.5% risk of dying
This doctor does not understand why he is being sued for 3 deaths, and now by 40 people, despite having operated on more than 600 people each year during his career. “Patients are informed each time of this dangerousness and the risk of dying,” said the specialist in 2015 in the Courrier Picard. He describes this surgery as “serious” and “difficult”, which would explain why few doctors perform it. However, in 2009, a recommendation from the High Authority of Health (HAS) estimated between 0.1 and 0.5% the risk of dying from it and some confers of Maher Hamdam spoke on France 3 of surgery “every day”, without risk of serious complications. The victims are now waiting for the start of the trial which, according to civil party lawyers, should begin in 2019.
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