M’sian businessman sues cancer centre over treatment for non-existent condition

SINGAPORE — A prominent Malaysian businessman has claimed that he had been advised to undergo a major surgery here, even though scans and tests of his urine and blood purportedly showed he was not suffering from cancer of the pancreas.

About a month after the surgery was conducted in August 2010, Mr Hii Chii Kok, who is the managing director of Kuala Lumpur’s public-listed SEGi University Group and executive chairman of private investment vehicle HCK Capital Group, became “very ill and started vomiting”. He then underwent “a lifesaving surgery” and was hospitalised in Kuala Lumpur, where he went through a “stormy” recovery.

Mr Hii, 56, said he was later told by doctors after a biopsy of his pancreas that he did not suffer from the illness.

Yesterday marked the start of an eight-day trial in the High Court, where Mr Hii is suing the National Cancer Centre of Singapore (NCCS) and its senior consultant, Dr London Lucien Ooi, for negligence of care.

Mr S Palaniappan, Mr Hii’s lawyer, said in the case’s opening statement yesterday that his client continues to suffer from pain and a loss of amenities stemming from the surgery here.

However, Dr Ooi’s lawyer Edwin Tong argued that there was not any mention to Mr Hii that the diagnosis was cancer. Instead, the doctor had advised that the lesions may develop into cancer. Mr Tong stressed that there was a difference between the term “cancer” and a “neuroendocrine tumour” and that none of the doctors who had attended to Mr Hii had mentioned that he had cancer. This was also absent in the doctors’ clinical notes, he added. Mr Hii’s symptoms post-surgery were also a known complication and could have been caused by a secondary infection of abdominal fluid. “The fact that a complication occurred is not conclusive of negligence,” Mr Tong said.

The NCCS, meanwhile, said it is not a hospital and did not provide care and treatment after Mr Hii’s surgery. Instead, it was the Singapore General Hospital that rendered the medical care and treatment.

Lawyer Kuah Boon Theng, who represents the NCCS, said Mr Hii had taken quite a “proactive” approach in arming himself with information relating to his medical condition and treatment options available to him. “If a patient were to elect to receive more advice or seek further opinions, then decides to take a treatment option that with hindsight he regrets, should he be permitted to retrospectively disavow the fact that he had been given those other options that he declined and simply berate the doctors for recommending the option that he took?” she said.

The hearing resumes on Monday. Ashley Chia