Liu Minxia

    mllmx@msn.com

    A DOCTOR at a public hospital received an administrative penalty for making incorrect medical records for a 74-year-old patient who died last month following a surgery performed by the doctor.

    The family of the patient, identified as Zhong Mouxi, accused the doctor at Peking University Shenzhen Hospital, Peng Yi, of mishandling the surgery and falsifying the patient’s medical records. Peng has been suspended from performing surgeries since early January pending an investigation carried out by the city’s health commission and health supervision bureau.

    The health commission said late Monday that there is no proof showing that Peng falsified the medical records as claimed by Yao Yao, the patient’s daughter-in-law, although Peng indeed mishandled the medical records by copying and pasting other patients’ records to complete Zhong’s.

    Peng was given an administrative penalty and received one penalty point in his professional record. Shenzhen doctors could be suspended from practicing medicine if the penalty points on their professional record reaches a certain point.

    Zhong underwent a minimally invasive surgery at Peking University Shenzhen Hospital on Oct. 19 to remove his gallbladder. He felt unwell after the surgery and a Nov. 6 checkup revealed that Zhong was suffering from a digestive tract perforation and abdominal infection. He was then transferred to the hospital’s intensive care unit (ICU) and later to Shenzhen No. 3 People’s Hospital. Zhong died Dec. 30.

    Yao claimed that the hospital deleted some key information regarding the surgery and reported using a lower amount of medicine when writing Zhong’s records. Yao also accused the hospital of distorting facts about Zhong’s condition, as the hospital said that Zhong had been suffering from abdominal pains for five years prior to the surgery, and that he had coronary heart disease, while Yao said Zhong actually only felt abdominal pains for three days and never had heart disease.

    Peng responded to the accusations yesterday, saying Zhong died not because of the surgery he performed, but after a craniotomy surgery at the No. 3 hospital. Peng admitted he had made mistakes in writing the medical records, but thought the mistakes would be corrected after being reviewed by other doctors in accordance with the hospital’s medical records handling procedures.

    A similar incident in mid-December drew wide attention to the hospital, which apologized for the death of a 27-year-old man who underwent a minimally invasive surgery to remove his appendix at the hospital.