A MAN in his eighties with bladder cancer died after a locum consultant at Belfast City Hospital incorrectly performed radiotherapy, a medical tribunal heard.
Locum Dr Alem Kahsay, from West Hampstead, London, is being investigated by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service following allegations about treatments given to five patients - four in Belfast City and one in England.
The patient in his eighties, known as Patient C, had a 50 per cent chance of being cured of bladder cancer but this was reduced to just 10 percent, the Daily Mail reported. He died following the incorrect treatment.
However, Dr Ernest Allan, a cancer specialist at Manchester's Christie Hospital said: "It is difficult to know what impact this actually had on his life expectancy."
Dr Kahsay is alleged to have made a similar mistake when treating a patient with prostate cancer, reducing the patient's chances of survival from 60 to 10 per cent.
He also reduced a lung cancer patient's chances of survival to 10 per cent after performing radiotherapy in the wrong area.
A second patient only escaped the same treatment when a radiographer spotted Dr Kahsay had planned to treat the incorrect area of his lung.
A hearing also heard that while he was a locum at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust he correctly decided to reduce a patient's chemotherapy, but did not change the dose on the prescription.
Dr Kahsay was a locum consultant at Belfast City Hospital between September and November 2008 and August and October 2009.
The Belfast trust said last night they were aware of the case but could not comment.
Dr Kahsay is suspended from practising in the UK after an Interim Orders Panel decision in July 2011.
The tribunal continues.