Doctor Suspended For Fatal Airway Blockage Error

The Medical Council has suspended a doctor from practice for six months, after finding him guilty of professional misconduct over the 2011 death of a cancer patient whose throat incision was mistaken for a wound and covered with gauze.

The council ruled that Dr Wong Cheuk-yi had failed to alert nurses at Kowloon Hospital that the incision was a permanent one and not a temporary wound, and he had failed to take proper steps to prevent it from being treated as a wound.

The 73-year-old victim, Wang Keng-kao, was transferred to the hospital for rehabilitation after he suffered a stroke following surgery.

He died in November 2011, and the incision, known as a tracheostoma, was found covered with gauze taped down on all four sides by nurses.

The council noted that there were numerous records of the gauze being changed by nurses, and the doctor should have been able to notice something was wrong.

During mitigation, Wong’s legal representative asked for a lenient sentence, saying his client was a victim of what he called “the breakdown” of the Hospital Authority system, nothing that at the time, he had to take care of 50 or so patients at Kowloon Hospital in the morning and then go to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in the afternoon for other duties.

He said the doctor feels very remorseful for not being alert enough. He added that Wong had enough experience to start a private practice but decided to continue serving in the public healthcare system and to teach and guide younger doctors and students.

Three other nurses had been found guilty of professional misconduct by the Nursing Council over the case in 2016.