Cancer victim given B12 injections

A doctor has been charged with professional misconduct for giving an Auckland man, who later died of cancer, injections of vitamin B12 and a steroid.

Brian Kennedy-Smith, who died of lung and bone cancer in December 1997, aged 54, had consulted the doctor about back and neck pain thought to be caused by previously diagnosed osteoarthritis, and also about later leg injuries.

He took standard, prescription painkillers but gained no relief.

His partner, Ms Pat Reihana-Ruka, told a Medical Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal hearing yesterday that before Auckland Hospital staff gave him morphine, his pain had become so bad he was reduced to crawling around their home.

The Health and Disability Commissioner's prosecutor, Tania Davis, originally accused the doctor of failing to diagnose the cancer, but yesterday withdrew that aspect of the charge.

She alleges the injections were given without informed consent, that the B12 was of no clinical benefit, and that the steroid, Solu-Cortef, was given for no clinically appropriate reason.

But the doctor, whose name is suppressed, said he was not the man's main GP and that those treatments were commonly used for pain relief in another country where he had practised.

The tribunal reserved its decision.