An NHS surgeon that left dozens of women in agony following plastic mesh operations has lost his attempt to remain anonymous after complaining that stress affected his libido. Former patients of Dixon say they were left “disabled” and physically and mentally damaged after undergoing “unnecessary” surgery with him.
Tony Dixon, a bowel surgeon, was fired back in 2019 following an investigation that found over 200 patients should have been offered less invasive treatment first.
The review completed by Southmead Hospital, Bristol, discovered that the surgery undertaken was satisfactory but unnecessary.
Dixon is facing several clinical negligence claims and is suing his former employer, the North Bristol NHS Trust, to stop documents from being released to his former patients, However, his attempt to not be named in that case has failed.
A psychiatrist stated to the court saying Mr. Dixon was suffering from moderate depression which included "disturbed sleep" and "a loss of libido". In a judgment published on July 26, Judge Mr. Justice Nicklin said the media attention was the "price to be paid for open justice and the freedom of the press".
Mr. Justice Nicklin said that media attention was the “price to be paid for open justice and freedom of the press”.
One of Dixon’s former patients, Paula Goss said his claims were ‘outrageous’, the founder of Rectopexy Mesh Victims and Support for people treated by Dixon, said: ‘‘He should think about all the hundreds of patients that he harmed that have not got any libido as well, and that have suicidal thoughts like he is trying to profess he has.”
Hundreds of women visited Dixon at the Southmead and Spire hospitals as he was pioneering a treatment for bowel problems using plastic mesh. However, concern grew around the number of women left bleeding and in pain due to the implants. In 2018, a coroner ruled that Lucinda Methuen-Campbell, took her own life due to the chronic pain she suffered from a failed bowel operation performed by Dixon in which he removed her ovaries. During a BBC interview before she died, she said that Dixon did not tell her that her ovaries would be removed and later said that they were “in the way”.
