SINGAPORE - A medical specialist who was convicted of having sex with a minor has been struck off the register of doctors.
Obstetrician and gynaecologist Ong Theng Kiat, 64, was jailed for 10 months in 2014 for two counts of sex with a minor.
He had slept with a 14-year-old girl twice, in 2011 and early 2012. She lodged a police report in September 2012, and he was arrested and released on bail in December that year.
But the following year, when filling up a form to renew his practising certificate, he answered "No" to the question of whether he was the subject of any police investigation which might form the basis of professional misconduct. The Singapore Medical Council (SMC) fined him $4,000 for the false declaration.
SMC held an inquiry against Dr Ong on April 1, 2015, where he pleaded guilty to the charges of underage sex and false declaration.
In deciding on the sentence, the SMC's disciplinary tribunal noted, among other things, that Dr Ong had known the girl's actual age and had brought two morning-after pills along for his first meeting with her in 2011. He had also lied to her that he was 40 years old and worked in stocks to cover up the 47-year age gap between them.
The disciplinary tribunal felt that his offence of sex with a minor "was a grave one which brought the profession into disrepute", said SMC. It added that the nature of the offence rendered him "fundamentally unsuited" to continue as a registered medical practitioner.
"The only appropriate sanction to uphold the proper standards of conduct and behaviour and public confidence in the profession was for Dr Ong's name to be struck off from the register," SMC added.
Dr Ong had closed his Katong clinic in March 2013 and his Gleneagles clinic in July 2013. He remarried in January this year and is expecting a child with his wife.
