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A patient who needed a kidney transplant has launched a High Court action against his former GP seeking damages of more than £200,000.
Case papers accuse Dr Srinivasan Subash Chandran of Sheppey of failing to take action when Kris Illidge made repeated visits to his surgery with swollen ankles and blood tests showed kidney problems.
Mr Illidge, 38, of First Avenue, Queenborough, says he made various visits to the GP’s surgery at Queenborough between 2012 and 2017 and at the time was becoming increasingly breathless, tired and irritable with puffy eyes and was putting on weight.
He was admitted as an emergency to the intensive care unit at Medway Maritime Hospital, Gillingham , on May 13, 2017 with end-stage kidney failure. After two weeks in hospital he needed dialysis for 18 months before he received a kidney transplant in November 2018.
But the papers say that the kidney transplant is likely to fail sometime after 2028 and he will need a second transplant which will also probably fail about 10 years after that.
As very few patients receive a third transplant, Mr Illidge fears he will probably need dialysis for the rest of his life when the second transplant fails.
Crane operator Mr Illidge says his life expectancy has been reduced by about 14 years and that he has been profoundly affected by his problems and treatment, suffering, among other things, low mood, helplessness, anxiety and disturbed sleep.
The papers say he would benefit from cognitive behavioural therapy but will be vulnerable to psychiatric disorder in the future.
They say he now tires easily, becomes breathless when walking far and has been unable to go back to playing golf.
He has had to alter his diet, has pain after heavy lifting, needs help with domestic tasks, childcare and gardening and remains on heavy medication with a poor prognosis.
During the past year he says he has been unable to work because of shielding during the covid-19 crisis.
Mr Illidge says that if he had been referred to a kidney specialist in December 2012, September 2013 or March 2016, a kidney biopsy would have shown his condition.
If this had happened, he says he would have been treated with drugs to have stopped him developing end-stage kidney failure and not needed a transplant.
The court papers claims he would probably have made a full recovery.
They say even if Mr Illidge, a married man with children, had been referred as late as 2016, he would not have suffered end-stage renal failure although he may have suffered permanent problems.
Dr Chandran, 71, retired as a GP in January this year. He had been one of the Island's longest-serving GPs having looked after Sheppey patients since 1981.
He had a surgery in the Sheerness Health Centre and a branch in Queenborough High Street with 4,400 patients on his books.
In November 2015 the Clinical Quality Commission (CQC) put his surgery in special measures but nine months later, in September 2016, it was given a clean bill of health.
