Surgeon warned cancer patient 'she might not live to see her baby grow up'

A consultant refused to help a cancer patient try for a baby, telling her she could be dead before she saw it grow up, a disciplinary tribunal heard yesterday. Dr Kevin Gangar, an obstetrician and gynaecologist at Ashford Hospital, Middlesex, admitted acting insensitively to the woman who was referred to him after undergoing a course of chemotherapy.

The General Medical Council heard that the patient "Mrs B" saw Dr Gangar in June 1997 while she appeared to be in remission two years after finishing her cancer treatment.

Ian Stern, for the GMC, said the consultant was "off-hand and dismissive" during the consultation. "She and her partner wanted to try for a baby. She tried to become pregnant but she could not and was referred to Dr Gangar," he told the central London hearing.

"He said, 'What's the point of having a baby? You could be dead within a couple of years'.

"She said her consultant said the prognosis was good and he said, 'he has to say that because it's his job'."

The distraught woman cancelled her next appointment and wrote the hospital a letter of complaint. She died of breast cancer in August 2000, aged 43.

Dr Gangar, 47, of Weybridge, Surrey, said he wished to apologise for the incident but denied implying Mrs B's consultant had lied to her. He also denied charges of delaying surgery, threatening a colleague, and trying to mislead the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists over his surgery record. However he admitted fixing the results in a clinical trial in 1995 to examine treatment of premenstrual syndrome, presenting them to an international meeting in Copenhagen two years later.

He admitted that he let unqualified staff carry out ultrasound pregnancy scans between February 1996 and November 1997.

The hearing resumes today.