Pretoria - Two doctors who face charges of culpable homicide related to the 2014 death of a patient at Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria are continuing with their duties while the matter is argued in court.
Professor Letlhogela Ntlhe and Dr Mpho Sandamela are due back in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court on May 12, while the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) has also scheduled a hearing into the matter.
The HPCSA confirmed it was investigating a complaint of unprofessional conduct in relation to the case with a hearing scheduled for next week.
Ntlhe and Sandamela appeared in court on Tuesday for the matter which relates to the death of James Swart, then 62, on whom they performed two procedures in February 2014 to remove a tumour near his kidneys.
Swart had gone to the hospital suffering persistent high blood pressure, which the two doctors identified as being caused by a tumour.
On the day of the operation, Swart spoke to his wife at 7am to inform her he was going into theatre and promised to talk to her again later. But the following day she and other family members were confronted by an unconscious and dying Swart. She said they had been given 15 minutes to say their goodbyes before he died.
Medical experts and an inquest submitted to the court laid the blame for Swart’s death on the shoulders of the doctors, accusing them of having been negligent.
According to medical magazine, Medical Brief, the doctors were seen to have performed unnecessary procedures on the man.
Surgeons consulted for the case also identified a breach in the standard of care in the doctors' handling of the patient.
“Had this patient had blood and urine tests done, they would have been normal and the patient would not have been treated as if he had a tumour,” Dr Dean Lutrin of the Association of Surgeons of South Africa was quoted by the magazine as saying.
Lutrin claimed it was likely Swart had died as a result of the operation. The man had been at high risk for major complications from surgery because he had significant kidney dysfunction and hypertension, Lutrin said.
He claimed that Ntlhe, who performed the first operation, left Sandamela - a trainee - unsupervised to perform the second operation, and that this may be seen as an error in judgement.
The suspicions of the surgeon were supported by the findings of the State pathologist and a specialist surgeon, whose investigation also found that had blood and urine tests been done, they could have determined whether or not a tumour was present.
State pathologist Dr Ryan Blumenthal reported that the cause of death was abdominal surgery with complications.
The autopsy showed no obvious signs the patient had a tumour.
Blumenthal said in his report: “Neither myself nor the National Health Laboratory Service could find any distinct signs of a tumour. Therefore the diagnosis appears to have been unlikely.”
The pathologist called for further specialist opinion and recommended that the docket, hospital notes and autopsy report be forwarded to the surgeons’ association for further interrogation.
The doctors initially appeared in court last July and have continued working in the hospital since then.
Gauteng Department of Health spokesman Steve Mabona said no action would be taken pending the outcome of the court case against the doctors. “Since it is a court matter we have limitations, and it is on record that we are supporting the surgeons,” he said.
“Any and all further action relating to the future of the doctors in the public health sector would be determined by the outcome of the court case,” he said.