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SCMP Reporter

A WIDOW yesterday accused doctors of failing to give medication to her dying husband.

  But Cheung Tai was told there were no drugs which could have cured her husband's disease. The jury returned a verdict of death by natural causes.

  An inquest heard that some medication had been given to Joseph Fan Kang-sun, but it was only to relieve the symptoms of his liver cirrhosis.

  Fan, 43, of Fanling, died at the Prince of Wales Hospital in January. The inquest, before Coroner Warner Banks, heard that Fan had been receiving treatment for about a month before his death. He had only been given a few months to live.

  Dr Chung Chi-chiu said Fan had suffered from swollen ankles and jaundice, symptoms of the disease for which he had been treated when he was first admitted to hospital in December and during his stay.

  'We treated all the complications and symptoms brought along by the cirrhosis, but this is an irreversible disease,' the doctor said.

  But Ms Cheung quizzed doctors as to why her husband received no medication for his swollen ankles on an occasion when he was discharged.

  One of the doctors at the hospital said Fan had been given drugs while another said he could not remember.

  The coroner heard that without a liver transplant Fan would have only survived a matter of months.

  Fan, a restaurant worker, was a regular drinker, which would have led to his disease.

  Pathologist Dr Cheung Fung-yip concluded that his death had been natural.

  Directing the jury, Mr Banks said the only verdict they could pass would be one of natural causes.



Man's death due to natural cause