SINGAPORE — The Singapore Medical Council (SMC) in a statement on Wednesday (April 22) said it had “acted immediately” in the case where a complaint had been made against two doctors for taking advantage of vulnerable female patients.  

The complaint made against Dr Chan Herng Nieng and Dr Julian Ong Kian Peng resulted in a defamation lawsuit filed by Dr Ong, against the woman who complained. 

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).

The defamation suit was dismissed with costs on April 3. 

SMC said that once it was made aware of the judgment from the defamation suit, it acted immediately to secure signed undertakings from both Dr Chan and Dr Ong to refrain from contacting female patients for purposes outside the scope of their medical practice, pending the completion of the disciplinary process against them. 

The statement by SMC was released in response to a commentary in The Straits Times (ST) titled "Disciplinary watchdog for doctors must do better", which was published on April 16 and called for the council to “do better” in handling complaints and protecting patients. 

The ST article said that the woman had filed her complaint against the doctors on June 19, 2018, and that the Complaints Committee has “yet to decide on what to do with the complaint”. 

“For the Complaints Committee to dither over the matter for close to 22 months is unacceptable,” the article added. 

In response to the article, SMC said: “The SMC Complaints Committee is already investigating a complaint made against both doctors, contrary to the ST article which reported that no complaint has been filed against Dr Ong.” 

The judgment in the defamation suit found that the two doctors had been “colluding” to take advantage of “other vulnerable woman patients” by exchanging 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 that 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. 

She also forwarded the complaint through email to a number of doctors in SGH, as well as two doctors in private practice. 

Subsequently, Dr Ong filed a defamation lawsuit in July 2018. 

The ST article also said that the SMC should have “triaged complaints” so that charges that are more serious can “merit quick attention”. 

Of the seven complaints in SMC’s 2018 annual report under the category of outrage of modesty, sexual relationship with a patient, or other sexual offences, at least three complaints made in 2017 had not gone beyond the complaints committee by the end of 2018, the article added. 

“The delay could allow the perpetuation of further harm, or harm to more patients,” read the article.  

In response to this, SMC said that of the seven cases pertaining to sexual offences mentioned in the ST article, three have been concluded and four are ongoing.

Of the four ongoing cases, the SMC has taken “precautionary measures to protect the patients”, it said.

TODAY reached out to the SMC on April 13 for an update on the disciplinary proceedings involving Dr Ong and Dr Chan. 

SMC added that it continues to work with the Ministry of Health (MOH) and medical professional bodies to implement the recommendations made by the MOH Workgroup to “improve its disciplinary processes and to minimise delays in dealing with complaints”.

The 12-member MOH Workgroup was set up in March last year and was tasked by MOH to review and make proposals regarding the taking of informed consent for patients, as well as the SMC’s disciplinary process.