Committee orders 18-month suspension from practice for doctor linked to anti-vaccine group Healing the Divide

SINGAPORE — General practitioner Jipson Quah, who was charged in court earlier this year with submitting false Covid-19 vaccination records to the health authorities, has been suspended from practising medicine for 18 months.

An interim orders committee appointed by the Singapore Medical Council (SMC) announced the suspension in a statement on Monday (March 28), ruling that this step was in the public interest and necessary for the public’s protection.

The suspension of Quah's registration as a medical practitioner took effect from March 23. It will last till the 18 months are over or when disciplinary proceedings against him conclude, whichever comes sooner.

The committee made the order after the SMC referred a complaint it had received from the Ministry of Health (MOH) about Quah to the committee on Jan 23, in order to determine if his registration should be suspended or subjected to conditions or restrictions.

According to its statement, a separate independent committee has been appointed to look into the complaint. Investigations are ongoing.

Quah, 33, currently faces a criminal charge of defrauding MOH by falsely representing that a woman was vaccinated against Covid-19 with Sinopharm when she was not, in order for her to obtain a certificate of vaccination against the coronavirus.

The charge states that he allegedly conspired with the woman, identified as Mehrajunnisha, and his assistant Thomas Chua Cheng Soon.

The case is linked to Iris Koh, the founder of the controversial anti-vaccine group Healing the Divide. Koh has also been charged in court.

The police previously said that Koh had allegedly referred clients, believed to be members of Healing the Divide, to Quah and had also suggested administering something else in lieu of the vaccine to patients.

At the moment, Quah does not face any charges of conspiring with Koh, but prosecutors had said that investigations are ongoing and that they were unsure if more alleged offences would be uncovered.

The interim orders committee elaborated that MOH had complained about Quah administering saline solution instead of the vaccine to patients, before allegedly uploading false vaccination statuses to MOH’s National Immunisation Registry system.

He also purportedly “grossly overcharged for ‘vaccinating’ patients” through this method, the committee noted from MOH’s complaint.

MOH earlier said that one of the clinics where Quah worked — Wan Medical Clinic in Bedok — had allegedly partnered Koh to offer “remote” pre-event testing using antigen rapid tests for members of Healing the Divide.

Patients were allegedly allowed to submit unsupervised antigen rapid tests through video or photo, and the clinic then uploaded a negative test result to MOH for them.

Quah was also found to have purportedly submitted a false positive antigen rapid test result to the Patient Risk Profile Portal, so that an unvaccinated patient could obtain a recovered status and be exempted from vaccine-related infection controls and regulations.

MOH did not state who this patient was. The Patient Risk Profile Portal by MOH allows doctors to access patients’ electronic records related to Covid-19.

Wan Medical Clinic and three others that are either licensed under Quah's name or are managed by him, or both, have been issued notices of suspension. Their antigen rapid test approvals have also been revoked pending the outcome of investigations.

The other clinics are Mayfair Medical Clinic in Woodlands, Mayfair Medical Clinic (Yishun Chong Pang) and Ong Clinic & Surgery (Yishun).

Quah had also been placed on leave by pharmaceutical company Thermo Fisher Scientific, the firm said in January. He is a director at PPD Global Central Lab, which is owned by Thermo Fisher Scientific.