Jonathan Aitken health scare: Ex-minister collapses in pain days after hip operation

By Sebastian Shakespeare

Published: 19:30 EST, 21 July 2014 | Updated: 02:32 EST, 22 July 2014

Health issues: Former jailbird Jonathan Aitken was taken to hospital in excruciating pain after an operation

Jonathan Aitken, whose wife Elizabeth endured a massive brain haemorrhage last year, has suffered his own serious health scare.

Days after undergoing a routine hip replacement operation, the former Cabinet minister and jailbird was hit by pain so excruciating that he passed out.

I started having shooting pains and they got worse and worse, he tells me. I began to lose consciousness.

Aitken had been discharged from the private King Edward VII Hospital in Londons Marylebone which is used by the Royal Family five days after the operation.

He was recuperating at the mansion flat he shares with Elizabeth in South Kensington when the pain in his hips, thighs and legs struck him down.

The problem was that it was a Friday, he says. I had fallen into the black hole of Friday afternoon medicine: everyone had gone home.

The 71-year-old Conservative wanted to return to the King Edward VII, but no ambulance was available to take him.

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Jonathan Aitken health scare: Ex-minister collapses in pain days after hip operation