Chinese medical clinics win suit over misdiagnosis

Here’s a story that combines the one-child policy debate with the current controversy over the value of traditional Chinese medicine in modern society.

Four Chinese medical clinics have won a lawsuit brought against them by a patient who accused them of misdiagnosing her pregnancy. According to Beijing Times, in March, 2004, 44-year-old Ms. Man visited a traditional Chinese clinic complaining of dizzyness, edema, and loss of her period. The doctor said it was menopause and prescribed corresponding medication. Since things did not improve, she returned to that clinic 10 more times and visited three other clinics a total of 10 times in search of effective treatment.

Ms. Man said that in the 21 examinations, the doctors all thought that it was menopause. During one examination, Ms. Man once felt something move in her abdomen, but when the doctor checked it out he said that it was just fluid, and that her periods had stopped because her ovaries had atrophied. On 4 November, 2004, Ms. Man gave birth to a son by c-section.

Ms. Man said that by misdiagnosing her pregnancy, the clinics caused her to miss the opportunity to abort. And their prescriptions for the symptoms of menopause may have injured her health and that of her child. There’s also the one-child policy – Ms. Man had a child 16 years ago, so this new son cannot be registered on her residence card.

The court rejected Ms. Man’s arguments, saying that as a woman of child-bearing age who had been pregnant in the past, she should have known to ask for a pregnancy check. She says she did, but presented no proof; hence, there was no direct connection between her pregnancy and the diagnoses given by the clinics.

The clinics’ explanation: they don’t do pregnancy checks. From the China Times:

The clinics disagreed with Ms. Man’s explanation; according to their records, Ms. Man’s symptoms were as she described them and did not concern pregnancy. “She never said that she wanted to check if she was pregnant. If she wanted a pregnancy check, then we would have had her go to a western hospital for the examination. It’s that simple.” The representative of one clinic told this reporter after the verdict that when a pregnant woman visits a traditional Chinese doctor, it is sometimes not possible to be entirely correct about whether she is pregnant purely through a pulse-check. “However, when today’s Chinese medical practitioners diagnose this kind of condition, they basically use a fusion of western and Chinese medicine.”