Doc suspended over £55,000 health board con

A DOCTOR has been suspended after conning a Welsh health board out of £55,000.

Chun Ooi, 31, completed more than 100 locum shifts, paid at an hourly rate, when he should have been doing research, meaning he was “doubling up” on pay.

He was given a suspended eight-month jail term in March after admitting fraud against Cardiff and Vale University Health Board.

The Malaysian national was caught out when he fell asleep during a night shift and the professor supervising his research work said he had not seen him for six months.

A medical practitioners tribunal on September 7 decided to suspended him for 12 months.

This was contrary to recommendations from the General Medical Council (GMC) that he in fact be “erased from the medical register” and struck off.

A representative for the GMC told the tribunal in Manchester: “Due to the offence which Dr Ooi committed, the seriousness of his conviction and the dishonesty which underlies it... his conduct was so serious that no lesser sanction was appropriate.”

But the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service opted for suspension saying the were “satisfied that there is not, at the present time, a significant risk of Dr Ooi repeating his behaviour” and that “his conviction is not fundamentally incompatible with continued registration.”

It went on to say: “The tribunal considered that the overarching objective of protection of the public, in particular the promotion and the maintenance of public confidence in the medical profession and proper professional standards and conduct for members of the profession, can be met in this case by the imposition of a suspension order.

“The tribunal was mindful that the public have an interest in not losing a competent clinician. It concluded that erasure of Dr Ooi’s name from the Medical Register was too severe a sanction given the specific circumstances of this case.”

Dr Ooi did 117 locum shifts, paid at around £60 an hour, between February and September 2016 with a total loss to the health board of more than £55,000.

In his submissions to the tribunal, Dr Ooi said he knew he was doing something wrong but that he did not realise how serious it was at the time.

Dr Ooi stated that he did not understand that he was behaving in a fraudulent manner and that he “certainly did not take the job with the intention of defrauding the NHS”.

According to the tribunal, Dr Ooi, who flew back from Malaysia for the proceedings, had taken religious classes from the Buddhist Society in order to enhance his insight and improve his character and that he took the earliest opportunity to express his regret and apology and made a conscious effort to assist and cooperate at each stage of the investigations.

Ooi, previously of Birchwood Gardens in Cardiff, will now be able to appeal the 12-month suspension.

At Cardiff Crown Court in March he was ordered to pay £55,785.83 in compensation to the health board, along with £2,000 towards prosecution costs.