MEDICAL MALPRACTICE CASE | Associations lambast court on newspaper’s front page

The Macao Daily News (Ou Mun Yat Po) published a “solemn statement” occupying its entire front page yesterday, which was jointly issued by 11 local medical societies slamming a recent court verdict over a decade-long lawsuit in a medical malpractice case.
Since the conclusion of the case, which resulted in the conviction of two doctors at the Kiang Wu Hospital for their “negligence in failing to identify the cause of an infant’s severe abdominal pain, which thus delayed treatment”, a number of local medical associations – including two headed by lawmaker Fong Chi Keong and Chan Iek Lap – have published their opposition to the court’s decision in the local press for the sixth time.
Lawmaker Fong Chi Keong responded to the media earlier last week, explaining that “illness and death are inevitable, and there’s no reason to expect someone to leave hospital fiercely alive and kicking after treatment.” As a major shareholder in hospital and funeral parlor services, Fong also shocked citizens by saying: “Will the sick definitely be cured? [If so,] then nobody will be sent to the funeral parlor.”
According to the associations’ latest statement  the conviction of the two doctors is “the darkest day” in Macau’s medical sector. It stressed that the medical practitioners are not “silent lambs,” and that their “forbearance and compromise has received extremely unfair treatment in return.” “If such a confusing verdict is acceptable, then nothing else could be unacceptable,” it stated.
The successive statements criticizing the verdict have, on the other hand, raised eyebrows in society, as some have voiced concerns over the traditional associations’ challenging and pressuring of judicial independence, whilst others have questioned whether those associations are misusing public funds. Some citizens have responded to the statements on social networks, saying “it was indeed the darkest day, but in terms of the respect for justice.” BY