Singapore – 27th November, 2019: Madam Goh Guan Sin has been in a permanent vegetative state since 2014 after undergoing brain surgery at the National University Hospital (NUH). Now, her family has lost a civil suit against the hospital and the lead surgeon who worked on her case at the time.
They also have to pay the hospital and the doctor the costs of the legal proceedings and their mother’s hospital bill that is still running at NUH to this day.
On Wednesday (Nov 27), the High Court ruled that there was no negligence on the part of NUH and Associate Professor Yeo Tseng Tsai, as alleged by the family of Mdm Goh — who is now 70 years old and a mother of six.
The civil suit was filed through one of her daughters, Ms Chiam Yu Zhu, who is represented by lawyers from Providence Law Asia and Virginia Quek Lalita & Partners, led by Mr Abraham Vergis.
The lawyers said that NUH and Dr Yeo jointly committed a “critical failure” in wrongly interpreting a CT scan. The medical team had assessed that the patient’s brainstem was bleeding substantially hours after a successful surgery and a second major surgery would be futile. They opted instead for a procedure to drain the brain fluids to deal with the complication, instead of stemming the bleeding.
The family alleged that the doctors at NUH had prematurely written off the patient and given up trying to save her.
Giving his reasons for his ruling on Wednesday, Justice Tan Siong Thye said that the plaintiff had failed to show that the hospital and surgeon materially contributed to Mdm Goh’s deterioration, even if NUH and Dr Yeo had failed to do a follow-up CT scan or advise the family on the choices that they could take to stem Mdm Goh’s bleeding.
A plaintiff must show that the loss of chance is above 50 per cent, he said, referring to the law of torts.
One of the plaintiff’s arguments was that the hospital had failed to conduct hourly monitoring, and one of the things that they might have missed were signs of deterioration, such as limb weakness or change in pupil size, that could lead to internal bleeding being discovered when the haemorrhage was still at a more manageable stage.
Source: https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/woman-vegetative-state-after-surgery-high-court-clears-nuh-and-surgeon-negligence