Doctor found incompetent

Press, 9 December 1988, Page 1

Doctor found incompetent

By

KAY FORRESTER

A Christchurch doctor has been found guilty of incompetence causing or contributing to the death of a patient. Both the patient’s widow and her lawyer are critical of the way the Medical Practitioners’ Disciplinary Committee has handled the inquiry into Dr Alan Yee’s treatment of Mr John Gable, aged 53, who died in April, 1986. The Christchurch Coroner, Mr Neil Maclean, referred the case and Dr Yee’s competence to the Medical Council in August, 1987, after ruling that Mr Gable’s death was avoidable. He found that Mr Gable died of blood poisoning associated with a serious arm infection and with a toxic dose of dextropropoxyphene — a drug contained in the painkiller, Digesic.

Mr Gable visited Dr Yee on April 23, 1986, complaining of a sore shoulder. Dr Yee diagnosed osteoarthritis and gave him a cortisone injection. Six days later, after a series of treatments from Dr Yee, he died.

The Medical Practitioners’ Disciplinary Committee has found Dr Yee’s management to be seriously incompetent and that his failings caused or contributed to the death of Mr Gable. He has been instructed to pay the $lOOO maximum penalty for medical misconduct and $BOOO costs. Both go to the New Zea-

land Medical Association.

The committee also imposed conditions on Dr Yee continuing to practice. They include: • A period of retraining with a general medical or surgical team at a base hospital for at least a month, at the end of which a report on his competence will be made to the committee. 0 The monitoring of his general practice for two years

• His joining the college as an associate and regularly attending courses run by it. • The monitoring of his prescribing methods by the district advisory pharmacist for two years. The committee found Dr Yee guilty of prescribing Digesic tablets without adequate instructions although he knew it to be a dangerous drug, injecting Mr Gable’s shoulder in an incompetent manner without relieving his pain and contributing to the development of an infection, subsequently failing to diagnose and treat that infection, and failing to assess the seriousness of the infection and arranging for Mr Gable to go to hospital. Mr Gable’s widow, Mrs Aleksandra Gable, was bitter and angry yesterday that Dr Yee had "got away with it.” “What is my husband’s life worth?” she asked. “And Dr Yee is still practising.”

Mrs Gable’s lawyer, Mr Grant Cameron, believes the matter should have been dealt with by the Medical Council rather than the Medical Practitioners’ Disciplinary Committee. The council has the power to strike a doctor off the register of practitioners, the committee does not. “A man died. The case should have been referred

to the council so that Dr Yee could have been struck off. The committee certainly imposed the maximum fine but what is $lOOO today?” said Mr Cameron. He said Mrs Gable had no appeal rights because she was not a party in the action against Dr Yee. She had two courses of action — both were unlikely to succeed. They were to sue the doctor for costs and to seek exemplary damages. Mrs Gable had received

an Accident Compensation Corporation payment for her husband’s death but it should be separate from costs and/or compensation, Mr Cameron said. He estimated Mrs Gable’s legal costs so far at $6500. The chairman of the disciplinary committee, Dr Dean Williams, of Hamilton, said last evening that patients or relatives had their legal costs — if reasonable — met by a levy collected by the committee. “The doctors pay for the legal costs,” he said.

The committee also allowed appeal rights to patients or relatives although the law did not specifically require them. He would not comment on the Gable case because the 28-day appeal period was not up. The law did not allow for any compensation, Dr Williams said. But the Medical Association had made submissions to the Government for a new law that would. Dr Yee could not be reached for comment last evening.