Dr Timothy Ekhlassi

One review of “Dr Timothy Ekhlassi”

Kwang Nam Ham

• 26 February 2021

I had my left eye surgery for the eye lesion removal by Dr. Timothy Ekhlassi who is working at Fraser Valley Cataract and Laser(private), Surrey, BC, Canada. Unfortunately, the surgery did not go well and that is why I am writing this review on the same date of the surgery (2021-02-25).

It started from the registration process in the morning. I arrived there at 9am(surgery time was 9:30am) and went to the receptionist( who gave me two pages of papers and ask me to sign without any explanation of what those are or didn’t even give me the enough time to read through and making questions. I am sure that there must be a certain process to explain and receiving questions as it was actually written on the paper.

Anyway, at around 9:50am, I was called for the operation.

He, Doctor. Timothy Ekhlassi, anesthetized the lesion about 6-7 points before surgery with the explanation that there would be no pain, but only feeling of pressure during the operation, which was not the case for me. After the anesthesia, he didn’t check if the area became numb, but all the way to surgery. I had to deal with great pain from the beginning of the process (opening the area and cut the skin) to the end of the surgery. I was holding the pain by gripping the bed frame and twisting my legs, but I could not help myself stop making groaning sound even from the skin cut. However, the doctor’s reaction was very ignoring by just saying “it is just a pressure”. In the middle of the surgery, I had to tell him that I was going through immense pain all the way from the beginning. Then, he anesthetized couple of more points(about 2-3) to ease the pain. Surprisingly, I was feeling pain from these extra anesthesia after the half of the surgery, which means that the area of the operation did not become numb at all.

After the second anesthesia in the middle of operation, he quickly began the surgery of the remaining area, once again without checking the area numb or not, and of course, I was going through huge pain even when he was touching the area. I told him number of times that I was dealing with acute pain. Then, finally and thankfully, he realized my pain then he stopped the operation after around 30 mins from the beginning.

I cannot explain how painful it was when I was feeling the skin cutting, scraping out the limp from the opened eye lid, stitching the skin of the eye lid and pulling out thread, etc. Imagine that you were feeling these and dealing with pains all the way through the operation. I was making groaning sound continuously with body languages as I couldn’t hold the pain. But Doctor didn’t take care of it and proceeded his work without even asking me a question. At the end, the lesion was not removed completely and I had to come home.

One the way home, I was still groaning in my car while my wife was driving and I explained her what happened and how much pain I had to deal with. Of course, she was very upset and concerned of the situation and the process I went through. So she called the office and spoke to the doctor. She was explaining how much pain I was going through throughout and after the operation. Instead of hearing apologies (we strongly believe that he should make the apologies as we see this as mal practice, something we may expect from undeveloped countries), his reaction was “so what was your question again??”. I am sorry to say this, but this is totally unacceptable behavior and quite arrogant, even rude. My wife was gobsmacked and handed the phone over to me. Then, I explained to him what pains I had to deal with and was asking why there was no process of checking whether anesthesia was working or not. My mental at that time was not quite restored from the pain and I probably could not explain the situation to him well up to his expectation, but his reaction was very much disappointing that my pain was due to the inflammation and there’s nothing he could do about it. This was obviously ignoring the situation as I told him during the operation and through the phone call that I was having acute pain from the very beginning of cutting the flash, which should not be the case if the area was numb properly. He was trying to avoid taking any responsibility nor accepting any mal practices, but just saying that he had to go for another surgery.

From this moment, I realized that I should raise the official concerns for what I experienced from this doctor and his practices.

I asked him if his office has got any complaint processes. He firstly didn’t explain to me if they had any official process for complaints from patients. I asked him couple of times again, then he told me that he would consult with office manager. After sometime on the same day, I received a phone call from the office manager and I had to explain to him all over again. Then he promised me to organize a meeting and operation follow up with the medical center owner(since my lesion was not completely removed yet)

I understand that the doctor should have been very busy and may not be able to take care of all. However, there are certain procedures must be kept nonetheless, to safeguard the patients.

I don’t want to imagine if this happened to my son or wife, dealing with the unspeakable amount of acute pains.

I am also trying to think if it was fair to the patient to take these all pains without pre warning nor choices given to patients to consider any other alternatives. Also, by looking at these unsafe practices, I am even wondering if there are any practical supervisions for the operation of the private medical centers.