Three years ago, I concluded a multi-part blog series looking at a case of gross negligence manslaughter in Hong Kong. The specific case related to a doctor who had operated on a patient who tragically died some 40 minutes after the completion of a liposuction procedure. The cause of death has never been established.
The trial was fundamentally flawed on multiple counts; medical experts for the prosecution committed clear perjury and the trial judge was out of her depth when trying to present the case to the jury. The result was a young doctor sentenced to six years in prison for a crime she did not commit. The trial brought up numerous issues of concern and for those interested you can find these blogs on the PMFA website. I am now delighted to be able to give an update which was recently reported in the South China Morning Post.
It will be several months before the formal judgement is released but in essence, the appeal court judges were highly critical of the judge and the prosecution intransigence. The thrust of the prosecution case was that the patient died from hypoxia. However, there was no evidence of hypoxic brain damage in the postmortem. I found it to be a procedural anomaly that I still don't understand. The prosecution based their case on expert opinion without this having been tested in an inquest. In the SCMP report, it was stated that the prosecution was not clear as to whether they were going to pursue a retrial. I have been told informally that there was some underhand negotiating with the Department of Justice such that if there was no cost application then they would not pursue a retrial. This sounds to me highly immoral, but such is the price for freedom.
At the CCR held in London last week, I was delighted to meet Dr Vanessa Kwan who has now relocated to the UK from Hong Kong. This terrible experience has had a significant toll on her physical and mental health but I was delighted to find her in good spirits. It was an immense pleasure to be able to take the 'selfie' attached and I wish Vanessa all health and happiness as she sets out to rebuild her life. A life which had almost been destroyed by this problem of legal professionals, arrogantly trying to deconstruct the complexities of medicine and in so doing coming to very false and erroneous conclusions.
This is certainly not the first case of gross negligence manslaughter that has been overturned. Sadly, I do not think it will be the last whilst we still have an adverse approach when trying to establish truth in the complexities of medicine. We cannot turn our backs on the deficiencies of the law when dealing with complex medical cases, but for now I will conclude this 'blog' with this statement: the death of a patient is always a tragedy but we must not compound this by rushing to attribute blame resulting in the additional tragedy of false conviction. Both the legal and medical professions have a complex duty of care when pursuing justice. On this occasion, it took time, but I am glad to say that justice was eventually achieved.
