‘My wife’s life support was turned off before sons said goodbye’

A grandmother's life-­support machine was turned off before her sons could say goodbye because of "tight resources", her husband has claimed.

Lai-Mai Pang-Cheung, 58, was put on life support after suffering serious head injuries when she was hit by a car near her home in Vauxhall, three days before Christmas last year.

Her husband Shun-Yuen Pang, 60, a security guard, said that doctors at King's College Hospital told him there was nothing they could do to save her.

He phoned two of his sons, who live in Hong Kong, to tell them to fly to London so they could say goodbye.

Mr Pang said he "begged" medical staff to keep his wife on life support for one more day until his sons, in their thirties, arrived. But he claims doctors refused and said they would be switching the system off in 30 minutes. His wife died shortly after it was turned off. He said: "Those doctors had no right to turn off that machine. I was begging them not to. My sons said they would be there in just over 12 hours.

"The doctor kept talking about tight resources and said there was too much demand to allow my wife to stay on the machine. Those doctors treated us brutally. I only wanted a few hours."

A hospital spokesman said: "The reason life support was withdrawn was that senior doctors judged recovery was not possible. This was explained fully to Mr Pang at the time."