Doctor who sold cough syrup wholesale jailed, fined
By Claire Huang | Posted: 20 July 2012 1620 hrs
SINGAPORE: A doctor who made S$266,800 from selling codeine-based cough syrup wholesale to three patients has been sentenced to seven-and-a-half months' jail and fined S$60,000.
Ho Thong Chew, 41, was sentenced on Friday, about a month after he pleaded guilty on June 22 to the 35 charges.
He had sold more than 800 canisters of the cough syrup to three of his patients. The cough syrup was in turn sold to codeine abusers.
Ho's offences were discovered after the Health Sciences Authority was alerted about the large volume of codeine-based cough syrup bought by the clinic in Ang Mo Kio between January and May 2011.
The father of two had been running his own clinic, Focus Medical Group, for seven years until it was shut down recently by the Ministry of Health.
District Judge Christopher Goh said a doctor's prerogative is to heal and pointed out that Ho has caused harm instead.
The judge added that Ho abused his position as a medical practitioner and played an active role in selling the codeine-laced syrup to reap a vast profit.
Judge Goh added that Ho was consumed by greed and was not as naive and innocent as he put himself to be during mitigation.
Ho's defence lawyer Choo Si Sen said: "I think it's a fair sentence. Bearing in mind the facts of the case, (and) the so-called few mitigating factors, I do not think I will advise him to appeal.
"Most likely they're going to pay the fine this afternoon, and I hope that this doctor can go back to his practice."
Later in the day, Ho's former patient Ng Jin Jie was also taken to task for buying 48 canisters of codeine-laced cough syrup.
He would buy the canisters from Ho and re-bottle them to sell to codeine abusers.
Ng was given 10 weeks' jail.
The 28-year-old had pleaded guilty to four counts of contravening the Medicines Act in May.
District Judge Goh said while Ng is less culpable in terms of the amount of cough syrup bought, the offences are serious and a jail term is warranted.
Ng then asked the judge to defer his sentence for two weeks so that he could settle family matters, as his son was starting school at the Movement for the Intellectually Disabled of Singapore (MINDS).
Ng was one of three patients charged along with Ho.
Another patient - Ng Yong Yi - had earlier been sentenced to 4 months' jail.
The remaining patient, Yap Beng Keong, is expected to be dealt with soon.
-CNA/ac/wm
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