A FORMER district MP has spoken of his shock following a sudden heart attack.
Sir Philip Davies – who lost his Conservative Shipley seat, which includes Cullingworth and Denholme, in July after 19 years in Parliament – has undergone a quadruple heart bypass.
It was the day following the surgery that Mr Davies describes as the “worst day of my life”.
“I could not breathe all day,” said the 52-year-old.
“It was really scary. The pain was just awful.
“I have never experienced anything like that before.”
Sir Philip was keen to praise the NHS following his treatment in the Accident & Emergency department at Wythenshawe Hospital, part of Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust.
This was after he admitted himself to A&E suffering from chest pains.
“I was finding it difficult to breathe. If I just went to the toilet and back, I was absolutely done for,” added Mr Davies, who was released from hospital on Monday last week.
“I went to A&E and they told me I had suffered a pretty serious heart attack and there was quite a lot of damage done to my heart. I was in hospital for three and a half weeks.
“The first two weeks were quite scary because they were doing tests to see whether or not they could help me, because my heart was so badly damaged.
“Thankfully, Wythenshaw Hospital has a specialist heart centre which has a surgeon called Professor Rajamiyer Venkateswaran.
“He is the leading heart surgeon in the country and he managed to work a miracle and gave me a quadruple heart bypass which was successful.”
Mr Davies added: “The NHS has got lots of problems and lots of things need fixing but when it comes to it, I dealt with some amazing people.
“You can get Professor Rajamiyer Venkateswaran on the NHS, which is pretty amazing, because anywhere else in the world you would have to pay for his expertise.”
As Sir Philip recovers, he has revealed there is a certain meal that he will miss the most.
He said: “I have got a long road to recovery, but I am through the darkest period.
“Esther (McVey, his wife) has been an absolute rock, looking after me and coming to see me in hospital every day.
“The most painful aspect of it all will be having to change my diet – there will be fewer full English breakfasts!”.
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