SMC imposes restrictions on two doctors who colluded to take advantage of female patients

SINGAPORE — The Singapore Medical Council (SMC) has issued interim orders to two doctors in response to a complaint that they took advantage of vulnerable female patients in order to have sex with them. 

The accusation made against Dr Chan Herng Nieng and Dr Julian Ong Kian Peng led the latter to file a defamation lawsuit against the woman who complained. Dr Ong later lost the suit as the judge found that the defendant’s claims were justified. 

Dr Ong runs a private practice at Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital while Dr Chan is a former senior consultant of psychiatry at Singapore General Hospital (SGH).

In a statement put up on its website on Monday (June 22), SMC said that the interim orders committee it appointed has decided that it is necessary for public safety and in public interest to impose conditions on the medical practitioner licences of both doctors. 

These conditions would last for 18 months, or until the disciplinary proceedings against them are completed. 

From June 18, Dr Ong cannot contact female patients other than for medical purposes. If he needs to contact a female patient, a staff member of his clinic has to do so on his behalf, unless the patient is in a hospital or clinic where Dr Ong is working. 

He is also not allowed to send the personal data of his patients to other people unless required by his medical practice or by law. 

Dr Chan was also subjected to those same conditions from June 18. 

In addition, Dr Chan must record his contacts with any female patients in a separate log if he has to get in touch with them in order to provide psychiatric care or if he is answering a call from them or their family members relating to psychiatric care or treatment. 

The log must record each time he contacts a female patient and the reason he does so. 

This log has to be submitted to SMC for review every two weeks. 

In an earlier statement in April, the council said that it acted immediately to secure signed undertakings from both doctors to refrain from contacting female patients other than for medical practice purposes, once it was made aware of the judgement from the defamation suit. 

The judgement was that the two doctors had been “colluding” to take advantage of “other vulnerable woman patients” by exchanging with each other potential patients and colleagues who were deemed easily taken advantage of to “satisfy their immoral desires”. 

They were found out in 2018 when a patient of Dr Chan — who was also having an affair with him at the time — accessed his phone and found a number of offensive WhatsApp messages between him and Dr Ong. 

She took photos of these messages and then submitted a complaint to SMC in June 2018, around a month after her relationship with Dr Chan ended.