SINGAPORE: A neurosurgeon who was fired by SingHealth after he accessed patient records without authorisation lost his suit against the healthcare group for wrongful dismissal on Tuesday ( Jan 21 ).
Dr Tan Tung Wee Eddie accessed the information of more than 70 people not under his attention in the course of calling out perceived transgressions of another doctor, Dr Chen Min Wei.
Dr Tan claimed to have been acting as a journalist, and argued that he should have been protected from retaliation.
He sought problems including the loss of potential revenue pegged at more than S$ 4. 4 million ( US$ 3. 2 million ), citing his inability to find career as a doctor.
But Justice Chua Lee Ming found that SingHealth was entirely justified in dismissing Dr Tan.
The judge also found that Dr Tan’s steps were “more likely driven by his single-minded desire to take down Dr Chen”, and that any damage his occupation had suffered was” self-inflicted”.
Dr Tan held the position of consultant neurosurgeon at the National Neuroscience Institute ( NNI ) when he was dismissed in March 2022.
The problem emerged in 2020, when physicians were not allowed to move between institutions under a COVID-19 epidemic process.
Dr Tan, then an associate consultant, was stationed at Sengkang General Hospital ( SKH) doing mostly” service-related work”.
Dr Chen, one month Dr Tan’s young and also an associate specialist, was deployed to Singapore General Hospital (SGH), where he had more coverage to complex surgery cases.
In September 2020, Dr Tan complained to a head of neurology and a deputy medical director that Dr Chen was “running” a clinic in SGH’s ear, nose and throat ( ENT ) department.
He complained that this was against the neuroscience agency’s law that associate professionals should never run or maintain individuals at subspecialty clinics.
Dr Tan alleged that Dr Chen was benefiting from “favouritism”, and had been running the office for times” under the safety” of Dr Ramez Kirollos.
Dr Kirollos was a senior analyst doctor at NNI specialising in bone basic therapies. This was a subspecialty Dr Tan was engaged in.
Dr Tan’s leaders investigated his promises and found that Dr Chen simply attended the ENT doctor as an observer, and not to work it or get people for himself.
They realised there were areas for improvement to ensure that training chances among interact experts were identical, and decided to take actions towards this.
They also reduced Dr Tan’s calling at SKH and made adjustments to ensure that Dr Tan and Dr Chen had identical options for calling at SGH.
They informed Dr Tan of their studies and actions. But he maintained that Dr Chen had gained a significant edge over his contemporaries through deceptive methods, and that not punishing him was a show of favouritism.
Over the next few decades, Dr Tan continued to raise his doubts about Dr Chen to his bosses.
He escalated his promises of “rampant favouritism” to Sing Health’s party CEO, who appointed a review section to look into the problems in November 2020.
The board completed studies in February 2021 and found that Dr Tan’s states were unfounded.
Dr Tan made further complaints when a person Dr Chen operated on in January 2021 became a paraplegic. A committee of inquiry ( COI ) found that there was no professional misconduct in the case.
In June 2021, Dr Tan made another issue when a person died after a procedure performed by Dr Chen and Dr Kirollos. Another Della cleared both doctors of negligence or judicial works in this case.
At around the same time, a whistleblower report was made against Dr Tan, alleging that he had accessed the medical records of one of Dr Chen and Dr Kirollos ‘ people.
The COI was also tasked to look into this, and found that Dr Tan had committed a data breach by accessing information related to Dr Chen and Dr Kirollos ‘ cases without license.
It recommended a distinct Della be convened to look into the statistics breach, and this was done in October 2021.
During conversations with the second Verso, Dr Chen admitted to looking at official information and images from Dr Chen’s therapies at SGH and Dr Chen’s cases at the ENT doctor.
The COI recommended giving Dr Tan a warning, but when the matter was escalated to the SingHealth Disciplinary Council, the council unanimously decided to dismiss Dr Tan.
The basis given for this was his repeated data breaches and blatant disregard for patient confidentiality and the rules on data security.
SingHealth also made a police report against Dr Tan, but decided against filing a complaint with the Singapore Medical Council ( SMC) to give him a chance to move on with his career.
However, when SingHealth received a letter from Dr Tan’s lawyers demanding reinstatement and compensation, it decided to make a formal complaint to SMC, given his lack of remorse.
The police gave Dr Tan a stern warning in lieu of prosecution in August 2023, but the doctor told the officer who handed him the warning that he rejected it.
On Tuesday, Justice Chua said it was not for the doctor to carry out his own investigations by breaching patient confidentiality and tossed his suit, while ordering him to pay costs to Sing Health.
Justice Chua said:” It was purely fortuitous that when the COVID-19 restrictions were implemented, Dr Chen was locked down at SGH and that gave him more opportunities to work with Dr Kirollos on skull base cases.
” It is unfortunate that ( Dr Tan’s ) envy of Dr Chen got the better of him and eventually led him to breach patient confidentiality in his endeavours to take down Dr Chen. “
The judge also noted that Dr Tan had asked for his name to be redacted if his claim succeeded.
The doctor’s reasons were that he did not wish to be “famous”, that his children would grow up spoiled if they thought he was someone special and potentially rich, and that he was concerned that his family in Malaysia might receive threats or be kidnapped for ransom.
As the claim failed, Justice Chua said this request was irrelevant. He added that the reasons given would not have justified redaction anyway.