Opinion | Reform of Medical Council can ensure public interests are better protected
Albert Cheng says the way it handled a celebrity couple's complaint about the death of their baby son shows its credibility is in tatters
Cheung Tin-lam died on February 20, 2005, a day after he was born. It has taken the Medical Council over nine years to establish that the doctor who delivered him prematurely was guilty of four counts of professional misconduct.
Tin-lam's parents, former actress Eugina Lau Mei-kuen and singer Peter Cheung Shung-tak, had to sell their flat to pay the hefty legal costs. Cheung also suffered from depression during their pursuit of justice.
Last Sunday, the council eventually found that obstetrician Christine Choy Ming-yan improperly ruptured Lau's amniotic sac without her consent, inducing labour a month before the expected due date, and failed to give the infant effective resuscitation.
Choy has been barred from practising medicine for two years.
Paediatrician Wan Kam-ming was found not guilty of failing to transfer the newborn quickly enough to Queen Elizabeth Hospital, which has better equipment for neonatal care. He was found to have made an incorrect clinical assessment but was cleared of professional misconduct.
The punishments meted out have made a mockery of our medical system.