Procedure new to doctors, court told
Inquest into 13-year-old boy's death hears that anaesthesiologist asked surgeons to do throat surgery they were unfamiliar with
The senior anaesthesiologist involved in surgery on a teenager who later died has admitted asking doctors inexperienced in tracheotomy to perform the emergency operation on the boy.
Dr Cheng Yat-hung was testifying yesterday at the inquest into the death of Medwin Cheung Yui-ting, 13, who died 2-1/2 weeks after surgery to fix two misaligned neck bones.
The operation, which took place on August 4, 2011, at Tuen Mun Hospital, lasted about eight hours, after which the doctors involved agreed to remove the breathing tube.
They wanted to take Medwin out of sedation in order to assess his condition, but the boy soon developed breathing difficulties and his heart stopped for a period shortly after.
Cheng told the inquest that after several attempts at re-inserting a breathing tube, he instructed neurosurgeons Wong Sui-to and Dachling Pang, who was visiting from the United States, to perform an emergency tracheotomy - in which an opening is made in the neck, to allow a patient to breathe without using the nose or mouth. A general surgeon later completed the surgery.
"To cut directly into the trachea to open an airway was the fastest way to restore oxygen flow in that situation," Cheng said. The doctor was in a supervisory role during the crisis, because he was the most familiar with respiratory emergencies among the team of nine doctors involved in the surgery.
He said he was aware that those who normally perform tracheotomies tended to be general or ear, nose and throat surgeons, but he had not arranged to have such surgeons on standby that day.