{"id":35676,"date":"2026-03-12T14:56:39","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T06:56:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=35676"},"modified":"2026-03-12T14:56:39","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T06:56:39","slug":"doctor-who-mistakenly-cut-womans-arteries-during-kidney-surgery-charged-with-causing-her-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=35676","title":{"rendered":"Doctor who mistakenly cut woman\u2019s arteries during kidney surgery charged with causing her death"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">SINGAPORE \u2013<!-- --> A consultant urologist was charged in a district court on March 12 with causing the death of a 63-year-old woman while performing surgery on her. <\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Dr Fong Yan Kit was charged with doing a negligent act not amounting to culpable homicide.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The 54-year-old is accused of erroneously severing <!-- -->the patient\u2019s<!-- --> superior mesenteric artery and coeliac trunk \u2013 which supply blood to the stomach and bowels \u2013 instead of her renal vein during surgery on April 29, 2022, at Raffles Hospital. <\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The mistake led to a lack of blood supply to her abdominal organs. She died in the hospital on May 2, 2022. <\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">According to court documents, the doctor concluded the operation without checking that he had severed the correct vessels. <\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The patient<!-- --> had undergone the operation to remove a growth in her kidney, according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/courts-crime\/doctor-made-no-attempt-to-fix-surgical-error-which-led-to-patients-death-coroner?ref=inline-article\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" class=\"gap-x-04 items-center inline text-primary-60 select-auto\" aria-label=\"link\" target=\"_blank\" data-testid=\"custom-link\"><span class=\"font-body-baseline-regular inline\" data-testid=\"paragraph-test-id\">coroner\u2019s inquiry into her death<\/span><\/a> in November 2025. <\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">State Coroner Adam Nakhoda said then that <!-- -->the patient<!-- --> died as a result of the medical procedure. <\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">An Academy of Medicine, Singapore (AMS) expert report by Professor Christopher Cheng, cited by the state coroner, said that when Dr Fong realised an error had occurred during the surgery, he paused for 13 minutes but failed to accept the mistake and call for help. <\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Said Prof Cheng in the report: \u201cAny reasonably competent surgeon would have realised by now too many large vessels not directly related to the kidney had been ligated and transected.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">\u201cThe consequences of ignoring the obvious clues and making no attempts to correct the situation while the opportunity may still exist while the patient is still in the operating theatre is incomprehensible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The state coroner said that Dr Fong was not forthcoming in his explanations to the court, as his first medical report did not mention that he had mistakenly severed the wrong arteries. <\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The state coroner added: \u201cSimilarly, the Raffles Hospital second medical report at best skirted around the fact that the coeliac trunk and the superior mesenteric artery were transected due to an identification error on the part of Dr Fong.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Dr Fong\u2019s case has been adjourned to April. <!-- -->The Singapore Medical Council (SMC) website showed that he is still listed as a doctor, operating at Raffles Hospital. <\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The Straits Times has contacted the SMC for comment. <\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">For causing death by a negligent act, an offender can be jailed for up to two years, fined or both. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/courts-crime\/doctor-who-mistakenly-cut-womans-arteries-during-kidney-surgery-charged-with-causing-her-death\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SINGAPORE \u2013 A consultant urologist was charged in a district court on March 12 with causing the death of a 63-year-old woman while performing surgery&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}