Farewell then Dr Devalia

One of the first medical professionals to contact the Pernicious Anaemia Society was Dr Vinod Devalia, the then Consultant Haematologist at the Princess of Wales hospital in, of all places, Bridgend which is where I live and where the society is based.  The first contact was by letter addressed to me.  In it the doctor stated that he was eager to ensure that he was giving his patients the best possible treatment and asked me to contact his secretary and arrange a meeting which happened about a week later.  Like most medical professionals he was astounded that patients were being mis-diagnosed with other complaints before eventually receiving an accurate explanation of their wide-ranging symptoms.  And he was also surprised that the usually prescribed treatment of a 1ml/mg injection of Hydroxocobalamin was often inadequate for a great many of our members.  He was genuinely interested in the work of the society and over the years has given his support on a number of occasions.  He was the first guest speaker at our first conference, attended the opening ceremony of the first little office that we rented and again when we moved to our present premises.  Two or three times a year we would meet up and discuss developments and current issues but always he craved the scientific basis that would provide the evidence that something was not right in the way the disease was diagnosed and treated.  And that scientific evidence was, and to a large extent still missing (though there have been developments in this – see the next post after this one).  I remember his horrified reaction when, at the opening of our first office, a member from the Rhondda Valley who was the manager of a forty bed care home informed him that eight of his residents had been told the previous week that they no longer needed injections as they were “over 80” and I remember how he immediately offered to intervene though there was no need as the manager, who was and is a member of the society, had already visited the health centre and spoken to the practice manager in a very controlled but stern manner.

I remember him asking me what I though of the new Guidelines which he was the lead author of and recall how he winced when I suggested that they, the authors, had washed their hands of the problems associated with adequate treatment and had ‘passed the buck’ onto the BNF.  His defence, which was reasonable, was that there was not scientific evidence to back up my claims – nor is there because nobody apart from the Pernicious Anaemia Society is looking into it in a scientific way.  It still strikes me as odd that the new Guidelines were written by the Consultant Haematologist in Bridgend following a meeting at the Department of Health with me, from Bridgend.  It’s a small world as they say – but I wouldn’t like to have to paint it.

About a month ago I called his secretary to arrange a meeting.  “You know he’s leaving us?” she said.  I didn’t and when we met I asked why he was leaving to take up a new post in England.  “It’s time to move on” he told me.  He had been at Bridgend for twenty years.  The reason I was meeting with him was to try and find a way in which GPs could be made more aware of the new Guidelines and he suggested that it might be a good idea that I contact the local trust and see if I could make a presentation at one of the regular training and update meetings.  I’m still trying to get a spot but he also suggested that he could also update GPs whenever the opportunity arose.  And it has arisen as one of the members of the society telephoned the office to tell me that his GP along with many more had been briefed on the new Guidelines by Dr Devalia, not in Wales but in the region where he now works. Hopefully I will be able to make a similar presentation soon.

We wish Dr Devalia well in his new hospital and hope that he continues with his good work.