Jury rules baby died of natural causes despite nurse’s error in medical tube check

The Coroner’s Court has ruled that a premature baby born at a Hong Kong public hospital died of natural causes, after an inquest revealed that a tube delivering medicine had remained closed for 30 minutes despite repeated checks by staff.

The baby girl, Angel Yu Pui-fei, was born in June 2023 at 27 weeks’ gestation at Prince of Wales Hospital in Sha Tin and admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit due to complications arising from her premature birth.

The court earlier heard evidence suggesting that a veteran nurse had failed to notice that the valve of an infusion tube delivering medicine to the patient was closed, even though she said she had inspected it three times.

A five-member jury on Friday announced its verdict before Coroner Raymund Chow Chi-wei, who said that even though there might have been a medical blunder, jurors could still rule that the death was due to natural causes if the deceased had a “pre-existing fatal condition”.

Angel lived for only one day in hospital and died on June 13, 2023. She had a twin sister, who is now three years old.

Their mother, Law Ka-sin, earlier told the court that she and her husband had not been informed of any medical negligence at the time and only learned of it after their daughter’s death. She said she did not know whether the oversight could have been a direct cause of death.

In the intensive care unit, Angel was put on assisted ventilation and prescribed adrenaline, one of two medications used to support her heart contractions, at 9.45pm on June 12, 2023.