SINGAPORE, Oct 16 — A woman, who was sued by a surgeon for alleging he and a fellow doctor colluded to take sexual advantage of patients, had her application for leave to appeal a High Court decision dismissed.
Serene Tiong, who was sued by HC Surgical Specialists (HCSS) surgeon Julian Ong, will also have to pay the costs of the application amounting to S$3,000 (RM9,161) to him, the firm said in a bourse filing yesterday.
District Judge Lynette Yap had ruled in Tiong’s favour in the libel suit in April, but Dr Ong appealed against the decision.
High Court judge Justice See Kee Oon on October 2 overturned the decision and found that Dr Ong and psychiatrist Dr Chan Herng Nieng did not take sexual advantage of Tiong, who had filed a complaint against them.
The judge found that both doctors, who are close friends, could have come together to target a female patient of Dr Ong’s, identified only as K.
Justice See said that Tiong had failed to prove her defence of justification, as she did not prove that the two doctors colluded to take sexual advantage of more than one “vulnerable woman patient”.
In a defamation suit, a person making the alleged defamatory remarks must prove that what they said was true to justify their defence.
Even though the judge found that a woman named only as K was indeed a target and a vulnerable patient, no other such patients were named.
He also rejected Tiong’s claim to be one of the vulnerable patients, adding that any relationship of trust that Dr Chan and Tiong shared was premised on the extramarital affair they were in, not on a doctor-patient relationship.
Granting Dr Ong his claim, Tiong was ordered to pay S$40,000 in costs for the lawsuit and appeal and damages she owed Dr Ong which was assessed by a district court.
Dr Ong was also granted an injunction restraining her from publishing the defamatory content.
Despite their legal victory, Justice See cautioned that Dr Ong and Dr Chan had no moral victory to claim, chiding them for their “blatant treatment of women as sex objects”.
The Singapore Medical Council said in June that a committee it appointed found that conditions had to be imposed on both doctors’ medical practitioner licences, for public safety and in the public’s interest.
For 18 months from June 18 or until disciplinary proceedings against them conclude, Dr Ong cannot contact female patients other than for medical purposes. If he had to, a clinic employee had to do so on his behalf unless there are certain conditions.
He was also not allowed to send personal data of his patients to others unless required by medical practice or by law.
Dr Chan was given the same conditions, with an additional condition: Contact with any female patients needed to be recorded in a separate log if he had to contact them for psychiatric care.
This also applied when he was taking a call from them or their family members relating to psychiatric care or treatment.
Dr Ong was also suspended from practising at Gleneagles, Mount Elizabeth, Mount Elizabeth Novena and Parkway East Hospitals, said a filing on the Singapore Exchange in April.
However, he is still allowed to practise at heartland centres by HCSS.
The firm yesterday said it will provide further updates on this matter if necessary and in compliance with listing rules. — TODAY
