‘Cancer patient would have died eventually:’ Report defends doctor charged with misdiagnosis

İsmail Saymaz ISTANBUL / Radikal

A report from the Forensic Medicine Institution, prepared as part of a case into the death of a cancer patient, has defended the doctor who was charged with misdiagnosis.

The Forensic Medicine Institution’s ruling defended the doctor by saying the patient would have died eventually, even if she had been properly diagnosed.

Nuriye Kasap, a mother of three, was diagnosed with asthma each of the three times in 10 months that she went to a private pulmonary-based diseases hospital, with the symptoms of difficulty in breathing and coughing. However, it was revealed that she had cancer after she went to another hospital, because her symptoms were not easing, and she died nine months later. 

Kasap’s family has filed a complaint against the hospital, while the Health Ministry has assigned three professors, including Dr. Muzaffer Metintaş, Dr. Sinan Enginel and Dr. Füsun Alataş from Eskişehir Osmangazi University Medical Faculty Pulmonary Diseases Department, to prepare an expert report regarding the death.

The expert report has evaluated Kasap’s three visits to the hospital, saying the doctor had failed to realize and evaluate the symptoms Kasap had and ask for further examinations.

Following the report, the family opened a lawsuit against the doctor on charges of causing Kasap’s death through misdiagnosis, asking for compensation for her death.  The doctor did not want Kasap to have a chest x-ray, despite the patient asking if she needed to have one, the petition filed by the family said.

The file was sent to the 1st Expertise Council of Forensic Medicine Institution, which has no pulmonary diseases specialist. After inviting a pulmonary disease tuberculosis specialist, Dr. Mustafa Erelel, the council prepared a report.

The report found the doctor guilty on only two counts of eight negligence charges for the death of the patient, saying the doctor has fault for not asking for further examinations, but it was not certain the patient would have survived if she was immediately diagnosed with cancer and received treatment.

The family’s lawyer Selamet Şen has reportedly appealed to the council’s report, saying the judicial clerk was discriminatory in favor of the doctor.

The expert report was dismissed in the council’s report, while it included four pages of the doctor’s defense, the lawyer said.

“The judicial clerk misguided the members of the expertise council. The report by Osmangazi University is being kept from the forensic medicine,” Şen said.