SINGAPORE: A doctor who was acquitted of rape and sexual assault after a high-profile trial was ordered to be struck off the register on Monday (Feb 27) for inappropriately prescribing medication and failing to keep adequate patient medical records.
Wee Teong Boo, 71, pleaded guilty in a disciplinary tribunal to 10 charges of inappropriately prescribing cough mixtures and benzodiazepines – a type of depressant drugs used to treat conditions like anxiety and insomnia. He also admitted to 10 charges of inadequate record keeping.
This case stems from a 2016 complaint that the Singapore Medical Council (SMC) received from the Ministry of Health, which was concerned about his practices in prescribing benzodiazepines and cough mixtures containing codeine.
The tribunal imposed a 20-month suspension on Wee, but the SMC later appealed for a higher suspension period of 30 to 36 months.
At a hearing in November, the Court of Three Judges questioned SMC’s counsel on why SMC was not seeking a striking-off order for Wee. He said that Wee had been prescribing medicines to people he knew were addicts.
The Chief Justice questioned at the time if it was acceptable for a doctor to prescribe addictive medication in order to feed or manage an addiction.
Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon said it was “fundamentally troubling” that Wee “saw himself as an alternative to street traffickers”.
After the November hearing, SMC’s solicitors from Braddell Brothers, led by Mr Edmund Kronenburg, prepared further arguments on the court’s instruction.
In the new submissions, Mr Kronenburg categorised the patients who received inappropriate prescriptions into four categories ranging from whether there was a clinical basis for the medication and if the patient had an existing drug dependency.
Five patients were included in the most serious category, where they had existing drug dependencies and there was no clinical basis for the medication prescribed.
Mr Kronenburg maintained that the tribunal had erred in accepting Wee’s unsubstantiated allegation that he did not exploit his patients for profit, and wrongly took this alleged mitigating factor into account.
Instead, Wee clearly exploited the addiction of patients who had existing drug dependencies for his own personal financial benefit, he said.
“It is with regret that the SMC has to state that this is one of the most egregious cases of medical professional misconduct to date involving the inappropriate prescription of codeine-containing cough mixtures and/or benzodiazepines, in addition to inadequate record keeping,” said Mr Kronenburg.
He said Wee’s conduct “fell so far short of the standards expected of him – his complete disregard for his patients’ health, safety and well-being was a serious dereliction of his duty of beneficence”.
He said that the court could consider making a striking-off order if it was of the view that Wee’s misconduct warranted it.
DEFENCE ARGUMENTS
Defence lawyer Chooi Jing Yen asked for the appeal to be dismissed and for the original order of the tribunal for 20 months’ suspension to be upheld.
He said there was no apparent or justifiable reason for the court to consider a striking out order.
He said Wee’s misconduct was neither deliberate nor intentional, that none of the patients made any complaints against Wee, and that Wee did not act dishonestly or display a serious defect of character.
Mr Chooi pointed to another doctor’s opinion, who said Wee is “a kind and compassionate doctor who tries his best to help his patients whenever possible”.
The lawyer added that Wee has “demonstrated insight into the consequences of his conduct”, computerising his workflow and taking proactive steps to improve his medical practice so he has more time to keep adequate medical records.
Wee made the news when he went to trial for raping a 23-year-old patient in his Bedok clinic in 2015.
He was acquitted of the original rape charge after the judge found there was reasonable doubt that he raped the victim as he suffered from erectile dysfunction, with his wife testifying that he was “soft like (a) noodle”.
Instead, the court found him guilty of lesser charges of sexual assault by penetration and outrage of modesty in February 2019.
Later appeals to the Apex Court resulted in Wee being acquitted of even the sexual assault and outrage of modesty charges.
Wee was represented throughout by lawyers from Eugene Thuraisingam’s law firm, including Mr Chooi Jing Yen.
The Court of Appeal had agreed with the defence that convicting Wee on sexual assault when he was tried for rape was “highly prejudicial”.