A Vancouver man with diabetes is suing a local acupuncturist for alleged medical negligence, according to a document filed recently in the BC Supreme Court.
In a statement of claim, plaintiff Biao Yang alleges that defendant Sally Sun Yun Wu, doing business as Natural & Organic Healing Clinic, represented herself to Yang as a natural health doctor.
Yang claims that he visited the defendant’s Richmond location seeking treatment for Type 1 diabetes. He says he told Wu that his doctors had prescribed him a daily regimen of insulin intake.
The plaintiff claims that the defendant “performed certain medical diagnostic techniques” on him and prescribed a “purported herbal medicine” for him.
The court document claims that Wu directed Yang to stop taking insulin and other Western medication in order for the herbal medicine to take effect. It further claims that Wu told Yang that certain side effects, such as nausea and vomiting, were “normal.”
The statement of claim alleges that Yang stopped taking insulin and started taking the defendant’s herbal medicine on approximately May 2. It claims that he developed multiple, worsening symptoms, including as nausea and vomiting, through the next two days.
“On or about May 4, 2012, the plaintiff was nearly in a state of coma when he was admitted to the emergency room,” the court document claims. “He was diagnosed with diabetic ketoacidosis and was subsequently admitted to the intensive care unit; the attending physicians of the plaintiff qualified his diabetic ketoacidosis symptoms as near life-threatening.”
The plaintiff claims that he “physically and psychologically suffered from the near life-threatening symptoms.” He alleges that the symptoms are the direct result of the defendant prescribing the herbal medicine and the medical instructions she gave him. The plaintiff contends that the defendant’s actions are in “direct contravention” of the Health Professions Act and its regulations.
Yang is seeking $90,000 in damages.
