Edinburgh's Eye hospital to reopen by end of June
Edinburgh's eye hospital will fully reopen by the end of June following urgent repairs, health bosses have said.The Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion closed on 28 October for two leaking copper waste pipes to be repaired and asbestos removed from the building.A phased return to the Chalmers Street building will begin on 19 May with services expected to be back in place six weeks later.Inpatient services and day surgery appointments were moved to St John's Hospital in Livingston during the closure, while emergency ophthalmology care was treated at a temporary home in the nearby Lauriston Building.
The hospital was deemed unfit for purpose in 2015.The cost to replace the Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion has since been put at £123m.In December Finance Secretary Shona Robison told MSPs the Scottish government would fund a replacement.Campaigners at the time told BBC Scotland News they welcomed the announcement with one saying she punched the air with joy.Jim Crombie, NHS Lothian deputy chief executive, said: "We are really grateful to our patients for their understanding while the Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion has been temporarily closed, recognising the additional stress and inconvenience this may have caused.""We welcome the feedback we have received from patients and their families, which we have been able to use to help support our plans for the return to the building."I would like to reassure patients, as we prepare to move services back, that they do not need to do anything."They will continue to be notified of where any appointments are taking place."
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Daily Mail
33 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE I ended up with irreversible brain damage and partial blindness after my gastric sleeve operation... but I don't regret a thing
In June 2021, Chelsea Connell forked out £9,000 for a gastric sleeve that she hoped would change her life. After the birth of her first child, the then 28-year-old from Hamilton, Glasgow, weighed 16 stone and was a size 20 but was struggling with her body. After three years of research, the mother-of-two booked herself in to Spire Hospital, a private clinic in Manchester to go under the knife on June 22, 2021. But her dream quickly turned in to a nightmare when the former beautician found herself unable to walk and struggling with blurred vision, migraines and vertigo after her seemingly successful operation. Following a series of tests, Chelsea claims doctors gave her the news she had irreversible brain damage and had developed the neurological condition Wernicke's encephalopathy. Despite the debilitating condition, the Scottish-native has said she doesn't regret her decision and said her weight loss allowed her to conceive her daughter and she would do it again in a heartbeat. Chelsea, now 32, told MailOnline that she had struggled with her weight and wasn't happy with her body but instead of flying out to Turkey, she decided to go private in the UK for her gastric band operation. After detailed research, the then mother-of-one decided to go for it but said she wasn't prepared for the results. Chelsea explained that while the gastric band operation itself was a success, she quickly realised there was something very wrong. Just three weeks after her surgery, the Glaswegian found herself suffering from vertigo and was unable to keep anything down. Two weeks after her initial operation Chelsea was admitted to Glasgow Royal Infirmary where medics tried to get to the bottom of her issues. After several rounds of testing, doctors realised Chelsea had suffered from malnutrition and a thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency resulting in an acute form of brain damage often seen in alcoholics. Chelsea told MailOnline that she believes if she had been given better aftercare after her gastric bypass operation, she would now be living a normal life. The trained beautician said that doctors failed to ensure she was eating and drinking normally before discharging and she criticised the private hospital for not providing in-person check ups. She said: 'I should've gone to Turkey because it's better care over there. It was rubbish over here - they just phoned for a check up. 'They just wouldn't listen and they checked the gastric band but it wasn't until the tests they realised it was actually brain damage.' 'For three to four weeks I had nothing. No thiamine and not one person noticed - there's only so long the body can go without thiamine. 'I was being sick all the time, just sicking everything up.' Chelsea says she has her mother to thank for making sure she was taken seriously by doctors and said at one point she feared she might die. 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Chelsea's Wernicke's encephalopathy left her unable to walk at one point but now sees her suffering from migraines and has resulted in the mother-of-two partially losing her sight The Glaswegian explained she struggles to live independently and can't use public transport or drive drive due to her partial blindness. She confessed: 'I can't judge distances and steps so public transport is hard - I count all the steps around my own home.' Chelsea added: 'Not being able to drive has massively affected me, I'm just much less independent and stay at home more.' She explained after she was discharged from hospital her nine-year-old son had to help her go to the toilet and move around the house and her sister moved in with her but now she can walk unaided and has systems to make sure she is safe in her house. The mum says she counts the steps on her staircase but even then she described walking up and down them as like trying to 'walk up stair while paralytically drunk'. 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