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By TOM FOOT
 

Athena Stylianou: “I want compensation for my trip to Greece and the scans they lost.”
Greek tragedy over woman's lost scans at the Royal Free

Woman who had to go private in Greece threatens to sue hospital over blunder

A DISABLED woman who flew to Greece to have her knee scanned privately rather than wait for an NHS appointment is so furious that the Royal Free in Hampstead lost the scans she is suing the hospital.
Athena Stylianou, 65, was refused crucial MRI scans on her damaged knee by consultants at the Royal Free Hospital in Pond Street so she flew to the Greek capital Athens to get the job done privately.
The €350 (£240) scans – which cost £800 in England – would have shown doctors whether she needed an operation called an arthroscopy to alleviate a knee problem.
But three years after Ms Stylianou first complained of knee pains, the hospital lost the scans leaving her back at square one.
She has filed an official complaint and has spoken to her solicitor about a legal challenge.
Ms Stylianou – who has moved into her son’s home in the Vale of Health – described herself as “the unluckiest woman in the world” after a life littered with horrific accidents, one of which left her partially blinded after accidentally rubbing toxic sap from a tropical plant into her eye that has left her “half-paralysed” in her home.
She said: “The results were never diagnosed. I don’t know what’s going on inside my knee as a result. I want compensation for my trip to Greece and the scans they lost. The hospital offered me another scan but what about the money I have wasted?
“The scans were very high quality – done privately in the best hospital in Greece.”
The hospital have investigated Ms Stylianou’s case through their official NHS complaints procedure.
A hospital spokesperson said: “We apologise to Mrs Stylianou for any distress caused by her lost MRI scans.
“We have offered to pay for replacement scans to be sent over from Greece or to re-scan Mrs Stylianou here as a priority case. However it would be inappropriate for the trust to use public funds to reimburse the cost of her trip to Greece.”
“The waiting time for a non-urgent MRI scan at the Royal Free is 24 weeks. From March 31 the government target for such scans is 26 weeks.
“The decision about how urgent a patient’s needs are is a purely clinical one and is made by the appropriate consultant.”
 
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