A/H1N1 Victim’s Relatives Accuse Doctor of Negligence

Written by DAP NEWS -- Wednesday, 30 September 2009

(Post by CAAI News Media)

A doctor was on Tuesday accused of negligence in the care of the kingdom’s first fatal case of A/H1N1.

After two days of suffering from the A/H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu, the victim died on Sunday afternoon. Her relatives on Tuesday alleged that the doctor, Srour Yina of the Sokha Phirum clinic, did not pay the woman enough attention after she tested positive for A/H1N1.

At an interview at DAP News Cambodia Head Office, Lim Chhay, the victim’s brother, said that her sister at first got fever and then was rushed to the clinic on September 20.

“Her temperature was 39.5 to 40 degrees when the doctor checked the victim’s health and her blood sample … but he had not told yet the result,” Lim Chhay added. “The victim’s health got very serious on September 25 and then rushed to the Calmette hospital, but this was so late,” he said. “When the victim was rushed to the hospital, the doctors asked for the blood sample result, doctor Srour Yina said that the Health Ministry had not yet given it.”

DAP News Cambodia could not contact any member of staff of the climic for comment.

One woman who answered a phone said she was a guard before turning off her phone.

Health Minister Morm Bunheng told DAP News Cambodia that he will send a group of experts to check this case.

The 41-year-old Cambodian woman who died of A(H1N1) flu at Calmette hospital at 4pm on Sunday became the first victim of the disease in Cambodia.

“This is the first case in the kingdom where the flu has killed the patient,” he said at the inauguration ceremony of the new tourism ministry. The dead woman lined in the Chamkar Mon district of Phnom Penh, Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Monday.

“The woman had been sick for a long time because she had lung disease,” the premier said, adding that the woman was treated in a private clinic a week before she died, but her infection was serious before she was taken to Calmette hospital.

“Cambodia has confirmed at least 88 cases of H1N1 flu since the virus was first contracted in the coun- try in June,” said a Health Ministry statement.

Over 3,900 people have died from the A(H1N1) flu worldwide since a global rash of infections began in April, the World Health Organization said last week.