Houllier in a happy return to city hospital

Jul 7 2007 by Mike Chapple, Liverpool Daily Post

GERARD Houllier will make an emotional return to Liverpool's Cardiothoracic Centre on Tuesday to officially open a new type of operating room, known as a hybrid theatre.

The former Liverpool manager will fly from France for the occasion and will be reunited with heart surgeon Abbas Rashid.

Mr Rashid and his operating team saved Mr Houllier’s life after he fell ill at half time during the home game at Anfield against Leeds United in October 2001.

It was discovered that he had sustained a dissected aorta, the main artery carrying blood from the heart and an 11-hour emergency operation at the centre ensued.

“The new operating theatre can cope with the most complex and technologically demanding procedures which are available today for the treatment of aneurysms of the aorta,” said Mr Rashid, the consultant cardiac surgeon and lead in thoracic aneurysm surgery at the centre.

An aneurysm is a balloon-like swelling on an artery usually on, or near, a branch and caused by localised damage or weakness to the vessel wall.

Mr Rashid said that the hybrid theatre will allow open heart surgery and keyhole surgery to be performed in the same operation. Before it had to be done separately with the risk that a patient may die in the intervening period.

It will also have a 3D imaging system which offers an almost immediate on-screen display of a patient’s vessels and internal organs.

It is the first in the UK to be sited within a theatre environment.

Mr Rashid, who confessed to being a huge Liverpool fan, said that Mr Houllier had to return for an annual scans and blood tests at the centre during which time they had become firm friends.

“Gerard really has become a genuine friend of mine,” said Mr Rashid, who will be sharing a meal with the 59-year-old Frenchman who left Liverpool in May 2004 after FA Cup, and Worthington and Uefa Cup successes, before taking Lyon to two French titles in subsequent seasons.

“There is more to him than just a good football manager,” said Mr Rashid. “He is a man of knowledge, very cultured and intelligent and it’s a pleasure to know him.”

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