The Tokyo High Court on Tuesday threw out a range of lower court rulings against six medical professionals in a case in which two patients underwent surgical operations intended for the other. The court then slapped the six with fines.
The six -- two surgeons, two anesthetists and two nurses at Yokohama City University Hospital at the time of the January 1999 mishap -- were accused of professional negligence resulting in injury for conducting a heart operation on an 84-year-old lung disease patient and removing part of the lung of a 74-year-old male patient with a heart problem.
In September 2001, the Yokohama District Court acquitted one anesthetist, handed a suspended prison term to one of the nurses and fined the remaining four.