Death of Tin-yu offers time for reflection

Hospital deaths that can be attributed to medical blunders invariably arouse public sympathy for bereaved families and friends, but few more so than the case of eight-year-old Chau Tin-yu, who died last Sunday, nearly four years after she emerged from an operating theatre at Queen Mary Hospital in an irreversible vegetative state. During surgery for a rare cancer, after the tumour had been successfully reduced in size by chemotherapy and radiotherapy, a blood transfusion was delayed by 48 minutes and Tin-yu suffered a cardiac arrest.

The community’s empathy for Tin-yu’s family, who cared for her at home for most of those four years, has been palpable, not least because their resilience and faith challenge our own. It also brought back into focus previous tragic hospital mistakes, not because there are many of them, but owing to the reporting, transparency protocol and media coverage that file them in our collective memory.

Tin-yu’s parents weathered depression and her father’s own cancer diagnosis while also caring for an autistic son, now 10. Few would have been untouched by Eddie Chau’s account of what it meant to them when Tin-yu opened her eyes and looked at her parents in her final hours. Meanwhile, the family recently reached a settlement with the Hospital Authority in a civil action launched three years ago. They are also being helped by a barrister in pressing police to launch an investigation into alleged medical malpractice.

That said, it is worth repeating an observation by the Post in an editorial comment on medical blunders just three months ago: “Considering public hospitals provide healthcare for most Hongkongers, the incidence of serious medical blunders remains thankfully low.” This is despite the pressures of a pandemic and chronic staff shortages. The reality is that even in an otherwise perfect world, it is unlikely there will be an infallible hospital. After all, to err is human.

The passing of Tin-yu provides a sobering moment to reflect not only on the need for hospital administrators and medical staff to remain vigilant for errors that may cost lives, but also on how they need community support in terms of human and material resources.