Beauty Clinic Doctor Jailed Over Patient's Death

A doctor who killed a patient after injecting her with contaminated blood products during a beauty procedure has been jailed for three and a half years.

Elaine Mak was last week found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter by a High Court jury in a retrial of the case.

Mak had given a contaminated blood infusion to the victim, Chan Yuen-lam, at a DR Beauty clinic in October 2012.

Chan died of septic shock and multiple organ failure a week later.

The founder of the DR Beauty group, Stephen Chow, who came up with the treatment, and the technician who handled the blood product, Chan Kwun-chung, were sentenced to 12 and 10 years respectively for the same offence in the original trial in 2017. But the first jury could not reach a valid verdict on Mak.

In sentencing Mak on Tuesday, Justice Judianna Barnes said the doctor had not explained the effects or risks of the treatment, including where there was any scientific proof of the treatment's health benefits or a possibility of bacterial infection.

The judge said if the victim had known about the risks, she might not have undergone the procedure.

Barnes also said that the defendant was an inexperienced doctor at the time and that she had misguided loyalty to Chow.

The judge said she had reduced the sentence from a starting point of 4.5 years after considering various factors, including Mak's remorse, the depression and gastritis she suffered as a result of the legal proceedings, and the fact that her career as a doctor would probably come to an end after this case.