Possible miscommunication between nursing assistants and a pharmaceutical salesperson may have led to patients being dispensed a diabetes drug instead of antacid, an inquest into the death of five patients heard yesterday.
The five had all been patients of Wong Tai Sin medical practitioner Ronald Li Sai-lai, whose clinic was the subject of a health department investigation in May 2005 after two of his patients were admitted to hospital with low glucose levels.
The coroner's court is considering the deaths of Zee Kuo-foong, 83, Yeung Kim-ching, 86, Wan Yau-kiu, 69, Cho Yim-fong, 72, and Fan Chu, 80, who died in 2005.
Dr Li's nursing assistant, Kwan Mo-yin, said that on January 3, 2005, she ordered by phone from Quality Pharmaceutical Laboratory three bottles of antacid Simethicone, also known as Dimethicone, together with an anti-inflammatory drug called Amplox.
But instead of Simethicone, a diabetes drug Qualizide - known also as Diamicron - was delivered to the clinic, as stated on the delivery forms submitted to the court.
The drugs mix-up came to light only in May during the Department of Health's investigation.