Surgeon says he is victim of attacks
Hospital chief defends suspension of doctor as a safety precaution
Prince of Wales Hospital’s cardiology division head, suspended from most heart surgery since February, said on Tuesday he has fallen victim to a series of orchestrated attacks and his boss, hospital chief Fung Hong, was misleading the public.
Yu Cheuk-man, a celebrated heart surgeon, heads the cardiology divisions at both the Prince of Wales and one of the city’s two medical schools at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
The surgeon was banned from all “complex” interventional heart surgery after hospital management received a complaint signed by all seven of his fellow surgeons.
Yu was alleged to have a higher-than-average mortality rate for angioplasty in the first six months of 2011, but argued management had inappropriately held him responsible for patients’ deaths.
A radio interview with Fung Hong, chief executive of the Prince of Wales Hospital and cluster of the New Territories East, prompted Yu to fight back again on Tuesday.
Fung outlined, for the first time, 11 “complex” operations in question. Four patients died, two suffered heart perforations and two had their arteries punctured. He did not elaborate on the three other cases.
Yu was also accused of undertaking procedures without proper training and permission from his supervisor.
“Professor Yu was not trained for some of the more advanced surgery,” Fung said. “Training that spans a full year must be carried out abroad because the volume (of patients) is low in Hong Kong. One can only come back after working on enough cases.”
Dismissing Fung’s criticism, Yu showed documents at a press conference proving he was certified by equipment manufacturers to undertake advanced procedures independently. He had also received additional hands-on training in three European countries under the guidance of “master specialists”.
As a member of the Hospital Authority’s cardiologist group, he also said the city’s hospitals have yet to establish common accreditation for heart surgeons. The need for overseas training varies on different procedures, he said, but is not mandatory.
Yu explained that only one of the four deaths cited by Fung happened within a month of surgery, and the patient was known to be high risk before the failed operation. It was hard to achieve a clean record on high-risk patients, Yu said.
An assessment of complications linked to surgery, he said, should be examined across the board, rather than focusing on an individual. The “selective sampling” of 11 patients “magnified beyond limits” was an unfair hindsight, Yu explained.
By citing the 11 cases in a “biased way”, Yu said Fung has interfered with due process as the cases were soon to be considered by an investigation panel.
“Things that happened recently have led me to feel this has been orchestrated and premeditated,” Yu said, declining to speculate on the motives behind it. “The treatment I got, in any case, is unusual.”
But Fung said it was also unprecedented to have seven surgeons filing a complaint against one doctor out of genuine concern. Fung said Yu’s suspension was a safety precaution that had nothing to do with office politics.
“We were concerned when there were 11 cases in a row, and that it was not just a problem of the system, but about the skills,” he said. “What if there was a 12th or 13th case? We can’t bear (the consequences).”
The Prince of Wales Hospital, through a statement, contended that Yu had not met the full requirements set by the equipment manufacturer when he undertook the operations. The certificate shown by Yu was also described as a recognition of his ability to take part in — but not take charge of — the special procedure.