A court in West Kazakhstan Region has ordered a district hospital to pay compensation to the family of a man who died after oncological disease went undiagnosed for nearly nine months. Serious violations in medical care were found, according to the website infohub.kz.

According to case materials, in December 2023, a resident of the Baiterek District visited a general practitioner at Hospital No. 2 in the village of Daryinskoye, complaining of frequent vomiting and dark stools — symptoms that could indicate serious gastrointestinal conditions.

Despite this, treatment continued for almost nine months without timely diagnostic procedures. The patient died of cancer on August 15, 2024.

Following his death, his wife and child filed a lawsuit against the district hospital, seeking 10 million tenge each in moral damages.

Hospital representatives and the attending physician denied the claim, arguing that the patient was advised to undergo FGDS, lab tests, and screening, and that test results did not indicate a critical condition. They also claimed the disease progressed latently with a poor prognosis, so there was no causal link between their actions and the death.

However, the court, after reviewing the case, reached opposite conclusions. It found that the doctor failed to properly evaluate lab results, did not follow clinical protocols of Kazakhstan's Ministry of Health, and did not timely refer the patient to specialists including a gastroenterologist, infectious disease specialist, hepatologist, surgeon, traumatologist, and oncologist. Moreover, after receiving a histopathology report, the referral to an oncologist was also delayed.

The court noted that the violations in medical care led to late diagnosis of the oncological disease.

“According to Article 921 of the Civil Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the employer is responsible for harm caused by an employee in the performance of work duties. For this reason, financial liability was placed on the state communal enterprise,” the court in West Kazakhstan Region stated.

As a result, the court partially granted the claim. The state communal enterprise on the right of economic management “Hospital No. 2 of Baiterek District” was ordered to pay 700,000 tenge to the deceased's wife and child each as moral damages.

The court decision has not yet entered into legal force and may be appealed.