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The mystery healthcare worker at the centre of a hepatitis C scandal was named today – as it emerged he caught it from a random needle stick injury while on duty.
Consultant Robert Pickard is the medic mentioned in a letter sent to more than 8,000 patients treated as far back as 1982 urging them to have blood tests.
Mr Pickard, who died from the disease aged 73 in 2012, is thought to have contracted the condition while carrying out a routine operation.
He had no idea he had the infection until it cropped up in a blood test in 2008 – at which point he immediately stopped working.
The alarm was raised this week after two of Mr Pickard’s patients were found to have contracted hepatitis C.
The father-of-two was a general surgeon at three hospitals in Lanarkshire: Law, Stonehouse and Wishaw General.
He also worked at the William Harvey Hospital in Kent for three months.
Mr Pickard started in general surgery but also did gastrointestinal and vascular work as well as breast, thyroid and paediatric surgery.
A biography on the Royal College of Surgeons website pays tribute to his ‘sense of humour and delightful eccentricities, such as his shambolic attire’.
And it salutes his ‘complete lack of pomposity, his warmth and thoughtfulness for everyone regardless of status’.