Healing the Divide founder Iris Koh, doctor charged with conspiracy to submit fake Covid-19 vaccination records; MOH investigating clinic
SINGAPORE — Iris Koh, the founder of controversial anti-vaccine group Healing the Divide, was charged on Sunday (Jan 23) with working with a doctor to cheat the Ministry of Health (MOH) over fake vaccination records.
Koh, 46, is accused of conspiring with Jipson Quah between July last year and January this year to trick MOH into believing that people were vaccinated against Covid-19 with Sinopharm when they had not been.
Court documents showed that the ministry then issued these people — who were not identified — certifications of vaccination, which was “likely to cause harm to MOH in reputation”.
Quah, 33, a general practitioner, and his assistant Thomas Chua Cheng Soon, 40, were also charged on Friday afternoon.
Both men are said to have conspired with someone, identified as Mehrajunnisha in court documents, between last month and this month to update the MOH’s Patient Risk Profile Portal and indicate that Mehrujunnisha had been vaccinated with Sinopharm.
This led to MOH issuing a vaccination certificate for Mehrujunnisha in the contact tracing mobile application TraceTogether.
The Patient Risk Profile Portal allows doctors to access patients’ electronic records related to Covid-19.
In a news release on Sunday, the police said that they had received a report from MOH on Friday about its investigations into a registered medical practitioner.
The police arrested Quah, Chua and Koh on the same day. Eight others are under investigation for their suspected involvement in the alleged conspiracy.
In a separate news release, MOH noted that Quah, who practised at Wan Medical Clinic in Bedok, was allegedly found to have submitted false information to the National Immunisation Registry to indicate that he had administered Covid-19 vaccines to individuals when he had not.
He was also found to have purportedly submitted a false positive antigen rapid test result to the Patient Risk Profile Portal, so that an unvaccinated patient could obtain a recovered status and be exempted from vaccine-related infection controls and regulations.
MOH did not state who this patient was.
Koh, Quah and Chua each face one charge of conspiracy to cheat and have been remanded for further investigations. They will return to court on Jan 28.
Those convicted of the offence can be jailed for up to three years or fined, or punished with both.
QUAH'S CLINIC ACCUSED OF BREACHING COVID-19 TESTING RULES
MOH said it had begun investigating Wan Medical Clinic after receiving anonymous feedback last month that it was partnering Koh to offer "remote" pre-event testing using antigen rapid tests for members of Healing the Divide.
It was found to have allegedly allowed people to submit to the clinic pre-recorded videos or photos, or both, purporting to show that they had performed the rapid test on themselves. The clinic then uploaded the negative test results for them, MOH said.
The police said that Koh had allegedly referred clients, believed to be members of Healing the Divide, to Quah and had also suggested administering something else in lieu of the vaccine to patients.
Supervised pre-event testing must be conducted in real time and in the presence of a registered medical practitioner or qualified self-administered test supervisor, MOH said.
Anyone convicted of carrying out unsupervised pre-event testing can be fined up to S$5,000 or jailed for up to three months, or both, under the Infectious Diseases (Antigen Rapid Test Providers) Regulations 2021.
There are four clinics that are either licensed under Quah's name or are managed by him, or both. They are Wan Medical Clinic, Mayfair Medical Clinic in Woodlands, Mayfair Medical Clinic (Yishun Chong Pang), and Ong Clinic & Surgery (Yishun).
MOH said that it will be issuing notices of suspension to these clinics, as well as revoking the antigen rapid test approvals for the clinics, pending the outcome of investigations.
The ministry will also be referring Quah to the Singapore Medical Council for further investigations.
Separately, Koh and her husband — Mr Raymond Ng, 48 — have been under investigation for allegedly instigating more than 2,000 members of Healing the Divide’s Telegram chat group to call and overwhelm public phone lines that help the public with Covid-19 issues.
Earlier this month, MOH filed another police report against Healing the Divide for purportedly telling parents to overwhelm medical staff members at paediatric vaccination centres with questions.
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