A doctor suspended after a female patient sprouted facial hair during treatment for a nasal allergy is fighting against his punishment, claiming Medical Council members were 'too tired and irritable' at the end of a 14-hour disciplinary hearing.
Gerard McCoy, SC, counsel for Dr Hui Yat-ming, 31, argued before the Court of Appeal yesterday that 'the appearance of justice was sullied by the length of the hearing', which produced 320 pages of transcript in one day.
In February, Dr Hui was suspended for one year for professional misconduct for prescribing the steroid dexamethasone to teacher Kitty Hung, 26, on three occasions in 1999 without proper justification or monitoring of side effects. As part of the misconduct charge, Dr Hui was also accused of improper labelling of the drugs, failing to tell a patient about possible side effects and keeping improper medical notes.
Mr McCoy said yesterday: 'A tired tribunal is one that is not safely able to reach a determination, particularly where a person's career and reputation are on the line.'
Juries were required to stop deliberating at 8pm, Mr McCoy said, because 'after that, at the end of a long day, justice cannot be seen to be done'.
Ms Hung's case came to light in January last year when she approached the Sunday Morning Post, which commissioned tests on the pills and found they were dexamethasone instead of the antihistamine eurodane, as she said she had been told.
