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Doctor who allowed patient with eye condition to continue driving bus suspended

SINGAPORE — A Khoo Teck Puat Hospital (KTPH) eye doctor has been suspended for three months for failing to provide appropriate care to his patient, a private bus driver who was seeing a black spot in his eye.

Reuters file photo

Reuters file photo

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SINGAPORE — A Khoo Teck Puat Hospital (KTPH) eye doctor has been suspended for three months for failing to provide appropriate care to his patient, a private bus driver who was seeing a black spot in his eye.

Dr Sanjay Srinivasan, 45, endangered the patient, his passengers and other road users by allowing the patient to resume driving despite knowing his vision did not meet required standards, said the disciplinary tribunal that heard his case. This was “simply unacceptable” and the tribunal ordered Dr Sanjay’s suspension, which began on Thursday (Jul 27).

The doctor had given the driver one day of medical leave and assessed him to be fit for work the next day. He did not require the patient to make a pair of spectacles before he resumed driving, merely giving him the option to do so.

Dr Sanjay assumed the patient — whose name and age are not known – would be able to make a pair of prescription glasses in less than half a day after his consultation at KTPH, said the Singapore Medical Council (SMC) in a press release on Friday.

He did not provide any instruction on making spectacles, and assumed an optician would know the patient was a bus driver who needed at least 6/12 vision.

The tribunal convicted Dr Sanjay of two charges – failing to provide adequate clinical evaluation and not providing competent and appropriate care.

According to grounds of decision released by the SMC, the patient was a feeder bus driver at a hospital.

On Oct 16, 2013, he had gone to a polyclinic two days after vision in his right eye suddenly blurred. He was urgently referred to KTPH’s eye specialist outpatient clinic. Dr Sanjay diagnosed him with mild cataract and a common eye condition called posterior vitreous detachment, where the clear, gel-like substance that fills the eye comes away from the retina. He gave the patient the option of making spectacles and fixed an appointment for six weeks later.

The next day, the driver went to the polyclinic again and was referred to the emergency department of another hospital, which scheduled an appointment the following day at another institution.

After tests, he was found to have a condition called central serous chorioretinopathy, which occurs when layers of the retina separate due to collection of fluid between them. He underwent focal laser treatment and was given 15 days’ medical leave.

The patient lodged a complaint with the SMC in January 2014. The SMC had pressed for a four-month suspension and S$8,000 fine for Dr Sanjay, who practised in India before coming to Singapore in 2005. But the tribunal noted his case was less aggravating than a previous one, in which a doctor was suspended for six months for not giving a foreign worker adequate hospitalisation leave after surgery.

A recent spate of accidents has cast road safety into the spotlight. Earlier this week, a minibus ferrying passengers between Mount Alvernia Hospital and Bishan MRT station crashed into a bus stop at Braddell Road. The shuttle service was provided by Mount Alvernia, which outsourced it to transport operator SMRT. Thirteen of the 25 passengers on board were sent to the hospital.

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