Worst-Case Scenario

After two years of waiting, 59-year-old Ceri has finally reached the top of neurosurgeon George Eralil’s patient list. She has a rare condition which frequently causes one side of her face to suddenly and involuntarily go into spasm and contract. She first suffered symptoms of hemifacial spasm while working as a primary school teacher. The spasms can be painful, and they have severely impacted her confidence and mental health, which meant she had to give up a job she loved.

Five years ago, George performed an operation which stopped the spasms on the left side of Ceri’s face. But the symptoms started again – this time on the right side. Now, in order to fix the right side, George must navigate around key nerves deep inside Ceri’s brain. Despite the fact that he has carried out the procedure many times, Ceri’s operation becomes one that he will never forget.

On call for emergency admissions at the children’s hospital is paediatric surgeon Enny Folaranmi. He must urgently treat six-week-old Zackary, who’s been unable to feed for seven days due to a narrowing of the passage between his stomach and small intestine. Zackary is being kept alive with intravenous fluids until Enny can get him into theatre. But he is not the only surgeon with urgent operations today, and with just one emergency theatre available, Enny must advocate for his young patient. With other children more clinically urgent, Zackary might not make it to theatre.

One of the longest-serving surgeons at Cardiff’s University Hospital of Wales is Naga Kumar, who set up Wales’s only centre for liver surgery in 2002. It serves a population of 2.2 million people, and with just four surgeons, the waiting list is under constant pressure. His first patient today is Sarah, who has waited seven months for surgery to remove a rare cyst in her bile duct that is causing her debilitating pain. Naga will run a test mid-operation to find out if is it cancerous. If it is, the procedure will take longer and put at risk the plan to get to his next patient, Linda, who has waited for 18 months.