Source: Telegraph
Wife of footballer Colin Hendry 'horrified' by lack of warning over surgeon
Denise Hendry, 43, died last week, seven years after liposuction surgery by Swedish cosmetic surgeon Gustav Aniansson went badly wrong.
Lawyers later secured a six-figure damages settlement in November 2006, while Dr Aniansson voluntarily applied to be removed from the General Medical Council's (GMC) register.
However, the couple were keen that foreign authorities be notified about Mrs Hendry's case to prevent the risk of other patients suffering the way she had.
The mother-of-four's lawyers claim that they asked the GMC to alert other countries but it refused.
Dr Aniansson is still working at a Stockholm clinic, the Hendry's legal team claim.
A spokesman for Pannone LLP, the Hendrys' lawyer, said on Tuesday: "We made requests to the GMC to inform foreign authorities and they refused. There have also been complaints against him in Sweden."
Stephen Jones, Hendry's lawyer, told Sky News: "Denise was horrified by the GMC's decision at the time and we considered judicial review proceedings – but the prohibitive cost ultimately meant that this option was not pursued.
"Colin and Denise deliberately publicised very personal issues relating to the original surgery, simply because they felt that he was a potential danger to other patients.
"They did not want any other individual to suffer in a similar way."
Dr Aniansson carried out the procedure on the wife of the former Scottish captain Colin Hendry at a private hospital in Preston in April 2002.
She suffered multiple complications after the procedure went badly wrong and never fully recovered.
Mrs Hendry died in hospital on Friday from a post-operative infection after spending the last 12 weeks in intensive care at Salford Royal Hospital.
She contracted the infection following surgery at the hospital, one of a series of operations undergone to try to repair the damage done by the disastrous liposuction procedure in 2002.
Mrs Hendry, from Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, had liposuction because she wanted to try to regain her figure after the birth of her youngest child but fell ill just two days after the procedure and required treatment for septicaemia at the Royal Preston Hospital.
Her heart also stopped for four minutes as she suffered a cardiac arrest following the botched operation.
She suffered nine punctures to her bowel and colon, causing blood poisoning and multiple organ failure, and needed a 16-hour operation in May as part of the long recovery process.
Colin Hendry, 43, the ex-Manchester City, Blackburn Rovers and Rangers central defender, said after her death that the "light had gone out" in his life.
The couple had been together for more than 20 years and had four children together, Rheagan, Kyle, Calum and Niamh – aged between 19 and nine.
