Clinic allegedly offered services to skirt COVID-19 testing rules; doctor linked to Healing the Divide founder

SINGAPORE: A clinic in Bedok North is suspected for partnering Iris Koh, the founder of the Healing the Divide group, to pass off unsupervised COVID-19 testing for the purposes of pre-event testing as supervised tests, a practice in breach of COVID-19 rules.

The Ministry of Health said on Sunday (Jan 23) that it started investigating Wan Medical Clinic after a tip-off in December last year. 

"Wan Medical Clinic allowed individuals to allegedly submit to the clinic pre-recorded videos and/or photos purporting to show that they had performed ART (antigen rapid test) PET (pre-event testing) on themselves. The clinic then uploaded the negative ART results for these individuals," said MOH.

Under COVID-19 rules, supervised pre-event testing must be done in real-time and in the presence of a registered medical practitioner or qualified self-administered test supervisor. 

A breach of this could result in a jail term of up to three months, a maximum fine of S$5,000, or both, for the test provider.

PROBE UNCOVERED SEPARATE VACCINATION PLOY

While investigating the suspected testing breaches, MOH also found that a doctor at the clinic had allegedly been involved in providing a vaccination service to submit false information to the National Immunisation Registry.

The doctor, Jipson Quah, would allegedly submit information indicating that COVID-19 vaccines had been administered to people, when they had in fact not received such vaccinations.

This would have allowed such individuals to be considered vaccinated and be eligible for all vaccination-differentiated safe management measures.

Quah, along with his assistant Chua Cheng Soon Thomas, have been charged with abetment by conspiracy to cheat.

Koh, the Healing the Divide founder, is alleged to have referred clients, believed to be members of the group to Quah for this vaccination "service". She was charged on Sunday with conspiracy to cheat.

Quah was also found to have allegedly submitted a false positive ART result to a national health portal, said MOH.

This allowed the unvaccinated patient to obtain a recovered status and be exempted from vaccination-differentiated safe management measures.

MOH said it would be referring Quah to the Singapore Medical Council for further investigations.

The ministry also announced that it would be issuing notices of intention of suspension to the four clinics that Quah is either licensed to, or is a clinic manager of.

The ART approvals for these clinics - Wan Medical Clinic, Mayfair Medical Clinic, Mayfair Medical Clinic (Yishun Chong Pang) and Ong Clinic & Surgery (Yishun) - will also be revoked.