Did you catch the segment on the news that featured Yaser Jabbar and thought to yourself, ‘what is this all about?’ His work as a surgeon has placed him under scrutiny. Many people are concerned about the issue and its importance. News outlets have highlighted Yaser Jabbar’s story because it involves a prestigious hospital. This article will provide all the pertinent details about Yaser Jabbar and the GOSH incident.
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Yaser Jabbar is a British-trained orthopaedic surgeon who worked with children at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) in London. He joined GOSH in 2017 as a consultant surgeon. His main focus was on complex surgeries related to children’s legs. Such procedures included limb lengthening and fixing leg shapes that were not straight. He often used a device called the Ilizarov frame.
This frame slowly pulls bones apart to help them grow longer over time. It’s a method used when a child has one leg shorter than the other or has bone damage due to injury or illness.
Before working at GOSH, Jabbar had trained in the UK and Australia. He also had a background in engineering, which he sometimes used in planning surgeries. Many people trusted him, especially because of the reputation of GOSH as one of the most respected children’s hospitals in the world.
But things started to change after some parents began to raise serious concerns about what happened to their children after surgery.
Yasir Jabbar worked as a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London from 2017 to 2022. During this time, many of the staff and families of the patients started voicing concerns about patient outcomes and his methods. There were reports that his surgeries led to some potentially life-threatening complications, such as unnecessary surgeries being performed due to inadequate pre-assessments. For these reasons, GOSH decided to perform an internal audit.
To address these internal concerns, GOSH commissioned an independent review from the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS).
The Royal College of Surgeons’ investigation revealed a lack of basic surgical hygiene on Jabbar’s side, including poor documentation, no initial assessment of the patients, and performing operations without sufficient preoperative consent.
The review noted that several operations done on patients were, in fact, unnecessary and placed patients at risk for severe post-surgical complications. The findings resulted in an additional investigation of all the patients treated by Jabbar during his tenure at GOSH.
This ongoing investigation covers 721 cases of paediatric patients under Jabbar’s care. Preliminary findings revealed that numerous patients incurred harm of varying severity, with some suffering the most serious consequences, such as amputation and chronic pain.
GOSH has reached out to the impacted families and is conducting full-scale assessments to actually understand how deeply they have been affected.
The hospital has apologised for the incident and promised to take steps to prevent it from happening again.
After the investigation, Jabbar’s employment at GOSH was terminated in September 2023. He was no longer a registered medical practitioner in the United Kingdom as of January 2024.
There are allegations that he took a position in Dubai, but having learnt of the investigation and findings in the UK, medical institutions in Dubai have put his practice on hold, reviewing it pending further evaluation.
Families of the children treated by Jabbar say they feel shocked and betrayed. Some of them say they trusted him completely and now live with the results of surgeries that changed their children’s lives in painful ways.
Most are advocating for proper frameworks aimed at safeguarding vulnerable young patients and firmer legislation to tightly control and monitor healthcare practitioners to minimise these types of abuses.
GOSH has stated that they will continue to support these families and will address every concern raised with the attention it deserves.
The case of Yaser Jabbar has left many families hurt and searching for answers. Children went through painful surgeries, and some are still living with the results. Parents trusted him, but now they feel let down. GOSH is reviewing every case and speaking with families. This story shows how important safety, clear rules, and honest care are in every hospital.
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