An anaesthetist in Singapore who left his patient several times during a surgery to take phone calls has been suspended for 2½ years on Tuesday (Jan 10).
The Straits Times reported that the incident took place at Gleneagles Hospital in 2016.
Patient dies of complication
According to the English daily, the 64-year-patient was sent to the hospital for a fracture caused by bone marrow cancer.
He later experienced a complication during the surgery due to a blood clot in his lung which prevent oxygen from flowing, also known as a pulmonary embolism.
Although medical staff were able to resuscitate him, he died the next day.
Left patient to take phone calls
Following a probe by Singapore Medical Council’s disciplinary tribunal, they ruled that the patient’s chances of surviving was significantly lowered by anaesthetist Dr Islam Md Towfique’s failure to recognise the change in blood oxygen levels.
In a statement by hospital parent firm Parkway Pantai Ltd, it wrote that “increasing the oxygen delivery is one of the first few actions that an anaesthetist should initiate when a patient’s [oxygen saturation] falls.
Yet, for almost 50 minutes…this remedial action was not taken.
CCTV footage at the hospital also showed Dr Islam exiting the operating theatre “multiple times”, with the longest being at nine minutes.
In his defense, Dr Islam claimed that he did nothing wrong in leaving the patient halfway through surgery as this “behaviour would not be that different from that of his other anaesthetic colleagues”.
“I was with the patient and did apply my expertise to keep the haemodynamics, but I forgot to increase the oxygen to 100%,” he added.
Dr Islam was then suspended for six months in 2017.
Suspended for 2.5 years
Dr Islam later admitted that he had gone to take unimportant phone calls during the surgery, with a majority of them coming from overseas and local patients asking when to come for treatment.
He also said that he was merely “servicing other patients who would be paying his fees after coming to Singapore for treatment“.
As such, the tribunal concluded that his actions were motivated by financial gain and suspended him for 36 months.
Dr Islam pleaded for it to be reduced by one-third, arguing that the case had taken a long time to be heard.
However, the tribunal only agreed to reduce it by one-sixth based on his past record of accepting phone calls during surgery.
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