2 doctors fined for fraudulent declarations
Monday, Mar 11, 2013
The Straits Times
By Elena Chong
SINGAPORE - Two doctors treated patients when they were not supposed to, and paid the price for claiming they did not.
Ng Hor Liang (above left) and Gladys Wong Mei Ling (above right), a mother of seven, were on Thursday fined $12,000 and $4,000 respectively after pleading guilty in the Subordinate Courts.
This is the first time doctors are charged with making a fraudulent declaration as well as practising medicine without a valid certificate.
Singapore Medical Council (SMC) rules require doctors to have valid practising certificates, which have to be renewed every two years, before they can treat patients. To renew the certificates, doctors have to accumulate 50 continuing medical education (CME) points.
Ng, 45, who runs Bukit Batok West Clinic, had fallen short by 30 points and was told by the SMC that he would not be able to renew his certificate, which expired on Dec 31, 2011.
After making up the shortfall, he applied for his renewal on Jan 18. SMC then asked for a letter of undertaking stating that he had not been in active clinical practice since the expiry of his certificate.
But an investigation showed that between Jan 1 and Feb 10 last year, he treated 40 to 50 patients a day at his clinic, contrary to his letter.
According to his lawyer, Mr Charles Lin, Ng, who has been practising for 21 years, was under the impression that his certificate would be back-dated.
He also argued that the CME system was complicated, and the SMC had last December changed how it worked to make it simpler. Of Ng's $12,000 fine, $8,000 was for practising medicine without a valid certificate.
A similar charge against Healthpoint Family Clinic & Surgery's Wong, 48, was taken into consideration.
In her case, she had a shortfall of only 2 points, which she made up on Jan 7 last year by attending a course.
But when she submitted her letter of undertaking on Jan 26, she stated that she had not been in active practice "as from Jan 1", which turned out to be false.
Her lawyers, Mr Sanjiv Rajan and Ms Christine Tee, said she was under the mistaken belief that she had accumulated 60 CME points.
But she was informed around September 2011 that the pharmaceutical conference she attended in Shanghai was not recognised.
Her counsel also said Wong, who is married to another doctor and obtained her medical degree in 1990, hastily scribbled the letter of undertaking during a a busy Chinese New Year period, when she had to juggle home commitments and administrative tasks.
Both doctors, whose certificates were renewed in February last year, could have been fined up to $10,000 and/or jailed for up to two years for the fraudulent declaration.
For practising without a valid certificate, Ng could have been fined up to $100,000 and/or jailed for up to 12 months.
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