29th October 2026 – (Hong Kong) The Medical Council has postponed a disciplinary inquiry into an anaesthetist linked to the case of Chau Tin-yu — the girl who was left in a vegetative state after surgery six years ago and later died — saying a Coroner’s Court hearing should come first in the interests of fairness and efficient procedure.
The professional hearing had been due to open on Tuesday. About a week beforehand, the council told Tin-yu’s father the inquiry would wait until the coroner’s process had a result. The delay has upset the family. The father said he was in poor health and feared he might not live long enough to see the case through.
In its explanation, the council said the death inquiry and the disciplinary inquiry concern the same clinical episode. Issues weighed at the Coroner’s Court, and evidence disclosed there, may bear directly on — or overlap with — what a Medical Council inquiry panel must decide. The Coroner’s Court, it added, has wider statutory powers of investigation. Letting that court go first would allow the panel to draw on a fuller body of facts and findings, rather than work from an incomplete picture.
Some had suggested the council could still sit as planned, take all the evidence, then freeze the process and decide only after the coroner’s case ended. The council rejected that as a short cut. Such a pause, it said, would not speed things up in practice.
The family’s wait already spans years of complaint and grief. Tin-yu never recovered after the operation that left her dependent on care; her eventual death put both a coroner’s examination and professional discipline on the table. Holding one track until the other finishes may avoid clashing findings, but it also leaves relatives facing an open-ended diary.
The council framed the adjournment as protecting judicial fairness and procedural benefit: overlapping evidence, a court with stronger investigative tools, and a wish not to decide on partial facts. For the father who was notified only days before the listed start, the practical effect is another delay — and the worry that his own illness may outrun the timetable. The disciplinary hearing will not reopen until after the coroner’s side has concluded.