THE Armed Police Hospital in Qingshuihe, Luohu District, denied Monday that it misdiagnosed a woman and denied that it had withheld blood pressure medicine because her family hadn’t paid hospital fees.

    The woman, surnamed Zeng, 43, died May 4 in the hospital.

    The family of the deceased woman claims she was not given proper treatment and that blood pressure medication was withheld because the family hadn’t paid hospital fees.

    Zeng was taken to the hospital on the evening of May 4 after she told her family that she was having a migraine.

    The hospital said Zeng was suffering from reduced blood flow and low potassium levels in her blood.

    “My mother’s blood pressure kept soaring while on an intravenous drip prescribed by the doctor, but the hospital refused to give medications to lower her blood pressure as we had not paid the fees yet,” said the woman’s son, identified as Huang. “It was the excessive blood pressure that triggered my mother’s death.”

    Zeng died three hours after the diagnosis. After Zeng’s death it was found a blood vessel had burst. Zeng’s family said the misdiagnosis lead to her death.

    The center of forensic medicine at Guangzhou’s Sun Yat-sen University confirmed that Zeng died from a burst blood vessel in her heart.

    “My mother had high blood pressure and I made this point clear to the doctors when she was hospitalized,” said Huang.

    Huang said that the family had asked the doctors whether Zeng should be transferred to a different hospital, but the doctor said there was no need.

    The head of medical department of the hospital, Lu Tao, said Monday that what killed Zeng could not have been detected by the hospital.

    Lu said the family did ask the hospital to contact a more specialized hospital to treat Zeng, but transferring a patient requires consent from the receiving hospital.

    Lu said the hospital does not delay the treatment of patients if they haven’t paid yet. Only the doctor, surnamed Han, who was in charge of the treatment that night, would be able to answer why the woman didn’t get the medicine.

    Han could not be reached for comment. (Zhang Qian)