Doctor probed for errors in 118 patients reports, failing to spot cancer
Errors by United Christian Hospital pathologist led to 17 people receiving the wrong treatment
United Christian Hospital is investigating the work of a pathologist who made mistakes in the health reports of 118 patients, leading to the wrong treatment of 17 of them.
The doctor, who obtained her specialist qualification last year, had erred in writing many pathology reports, the public hospital announced yesterday.
The mistakes included failing to detect cancer cells and confusing medical terms.
The hospital said the errors did not pose a significant health risk to the people involved, but two female patients had been more seriously affected than the others, and they had already been contacted about the doctor's mistakes.
The hospital said yesterday that it was in the process of notifying the other affected patients from various specialties including surgery and obstetrics.
In the most serious incidents, the doctor had incorrectly interpreted the tissue sample of a female patient who had lumps in her breast as fibroadenoma - a benign tumour - when it was actually breast cancer.
Another female patient who was having irregular menstrual periods was mistakenly said to have an inflammation in her uterus. It was later found that she was suffering from a condition that could cause cancer.