Doctor who prescribed drug knowing it could harm foetus gets suspended sentence
Dr Liu Woon-tim faces two-month suspension from register if he re-offends in the next year
PUBLISHED : Monday, 03 March, 2014, 12:33pm
UPDATED : Monday, 03 March, 2014, 1:38pm
Lo Wei [email protected]
Dr Liu Woon-tim, above at the Medical Council, prescribed Lisinopril to treat his patient's high blood pressure despite knowing she was 20 weeks pregnant. Photo: Lo Wei
A private practitioner who was once the chief of the Prince of Wales Hospital has received a suspended sentence for prescribing to a pregnant woman a drug that he knew could pose a risk to her unborn child.
The Medical Council found Dr Liu Woon-tim, now a private general practitioner, guilty of professional misconduct and sentenced him to a two-month suspension from the doctor’s register for the offence. However, it suspended the sentence for a year.
Liu, once the medical superintendent at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sha Tin, left in 1989 to set up a private clinic in To Kwa Wan.
In May 2010 he prescribed Lisinopril to treat his patient Li Yung-man’s high blood pressure.
He knew she was 20 weeks pregnant and that the drug posed a risk to the foetus, but prescribed it anyway, he admitted to the council.
"We accept this was an isolated incident and the defendant is unlikely to commit the same or similar professional misconduct in the future," council temporary chairman professor Felice Lieh-Mak wrote in the judgment.
Liu apologised to the patient and council, and said he hoped to continue medical practice as it was his childhood dream to be a doctor.
The suspended sentence means he will not be removed from the register unless he commits a further offence in the next 12 months.
