Alleged negligence by staff of Queen Elizabeth Hospital left a man paralysed and planning suicide were it not for his realisation that 'I can't even kill myself', a court heard yesterday.
Li Tai-ming, 43, is suing the hospital for millions of dollars, with counsel claiming doctors were 'fully aware of [his] potentially catastrophic' spinal condition early on but never explained the gravity of it and initially discharged him with a prescription for vitamin B.
James Badenoch QC, for Mr Li, told the Court of First Instance his client presented a tragic picture of a man 'totally paralysed, doubly incontinent, with severe and painful spasms of his limbs, and deprived of . . . the hope of a family with his devoted wife'.
'Not surprisingly he is depressed and entertains suicidal thoughts, although as he himself puts it, 'I can't even kill myself'.' Mr Li underwent an operation in 1979 at the hospital to investigate pain in his right ankle. Numerous diagnoses followed, with subsequent operations leaving him with a limp following a 2cm shortening of his leg. A decade after his ankle troubles began, signs of a more 'sinister' problem emerged with 'clawing' of his hands.
The examining doctor ought to have been aware of the potential for 'catastrophic progression' to paralysis in December 1989, Mr Badenoch said.
'It is incontestable that if he had been admitted in late 1989 or early 1990 for the investigations he required, his [spinal condition] would quite swiftly have been diagnosed. Surgery would then presumably be promptly undertaken . . . and his terrible decline into total paralysis, averted.' The case continues before Mr Justice Conrad Seagroatt.
