Trial opens for Healing the Divide's Iris Koh, doctor and assistant accused of cheating HPB over COVID-19 jabs

SINGAPORE: The trial of Healing the Divide founder Iris Koh, suspended doctor Jipson Quah and his assistant Thomas Chua Cheng Soon opened at the State Courts on Monday (Dec 16).

The trio is accused of a criminal conspiracy to cheat the Health Promotion Board (HPB) that people were immunised with the Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine when they were not.

The allegations span periods in 2021 and 2022, when vaccination-differentiated measures for activities like dining in at eateries and returning to the office were in place in Singapore.

A district court heard more details of how the scheme operated, including how Koh allegedly referred patients to Dr Quah, who said he was offered up to S$6,000 (US$4,500) to give a family saline solutions that were recorded as the COVID-19 vaccination.

Koh, 48, is the founder of Healing the Divide, a group that is known to be against COVID-19 vaccination.

She faces a total of 14 charges, of which the prosecution is proceeding with seven charges of conspiracy to cheat HPB. She is represented by Mr Wee Pan Lee of Wee, Tay & Lim.

Her seven remaining charges have been stood down while the trial proceeds. These are for allegedly instigating Healing the Divide members to “flood” government hotlines and harass doctors at vaccination centres, organising a public assembly against the national COVID-19 immunisation programme, and refusing to sign and tearing up a copy of her police statement. 

Against Dr Quah, 36, the prosecution is proceeding with 17 charges of conspiring to cheat HPB. He was suspended from medical practice by the Singapore Medical Council (SMC) in March 2022, and is represented by Mr Adrian Wee of Lighthouse Law.

Chua, the doctor’s 43-year-old assistant, faces seven charges of conspiring to cheat HPB, and is representing himself.

The prosecution’s case is that Koh would refer people who did not want to be vaccinated to Dr Quah, for him to assist in recording them as having received a COVID-19 jab, when they had not.

Deputy Public Prosecutors Timotheus Koh, Yohanes Ng and Thaddeus Tan said that Dr Quah would administer saline solution to these patients instead of the vaccine.

He then made false representations to the HPB’s National Immunisation Registry by notifying the registry that these persons had received a COVID-19 vaccine, the prosecutors said.

Dr Quah operated various clinics between Oct 16, 2021 and Jan 19, 2022, according to the prosecutors.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) previously said that Dr Quah was the licensee or manager of Wan Medical Clinic, Mayfair Medical Clinic, Mayfair Medical Clinic (Yishun Chong Pang) and Ong Clinic & Surgery (Yishun).

Chua, who worked for Dr Quah at the clinics, allegedly helped him to liaise with these patients and knew the doctor was administering saline instead of a vaccine.

The prosecutors said that Dr Quah and Chua admitted to these offences in their police statements. They will seek to prove the prosecution’s case using 11 statements that each man recorded.

The prosecution will also call other co-conspirators or patients named in the charges, who consulted Dr Quah at his clinics, to testify before District Judge Paul Quan.

“REFERRALS” FROM KOH

The prosecutors said that Dr Quah became acquainted with Koh sometime in 2021. The court heard more details of how they met and how Dr Quah allegedly started giving patients saline.

Assistant Superintendent of Police Karl Elliott Lim Peng, who was the prosecution’s first witness, took the court through a statement he recorded from Dr Quah on Jan 21, 2022.

In the statement, Dr Quah said that Koh accompanied a female patient to one of his clinics in July 2021. He only knew Koh from what had been reported about her in the media at the time.

Dr Quah said the patient requested a blood test to determine if she had vaccine-related complications, and he administered one.

After this, Koh was “grateful” and wanted to know if he could conduct blood tests for other patients with similar symptoms. They exchanged numbers and kept in touch.

According to Dr Quah’s statement, after the government started introducing more vaccine-differentiated measures, Koh asked him if he administered Sinopharm vaccines. When he confirmed this, she said she would refer people to him for the vaccines.

In the statement, Dr Quah claimed his understanding was that Koh would refer the patients to him to receive the Sinopharm vaccine.

Sometime in 2021, a female patient visited his clinic and identified herself as a “referral” from Koh. According to Dr Quah, she said she would like to receive the COVID-19 vaccine but was fearful of the side effects, and “pleaded” with him to administer an alternative shot.

He also told ASP Lim that over time, more patients “trickled” in identifying themselves as referrals from Koh and saying that they were fearful of vaccinations.

Dr Quah said in the statement that he mostly would not know in advance if a patient was affiliated with Koh, although she would sometimes text him ahead of time to say who the patients were and when they would visit.

He said that for all patients seeking a Sinopharm vaccine, he would prepare and administer it following standard procedure.

But if they called themselves “referrals from Iris” and said they were afraid of being vaccinated, he would offer a saline jab and reflect them as having received the Sinopharm vaccine, Dr Quah said in his statement.

When ASP Lim asked Dr Quah why he did this, the doctor responded that he felt “sorry” for the patients because unvaccinated people faced restrictions at the time. He said he “found it hard” to reject an elderly couple who made such a request, for example.

He claimed that some of the patients came to him as they did not want to be terminated from their employment, while others wanted to “get around” social restrictions on unvaccinated people.

In a second statement recorded later that morning, Dr Quah was asked how complicit Koh was in him giving saline shots instead of the vaccine.

Dr Quah told ASP Lim that he was on the phone with Koh when she suggested he give the patients something in place of the Sinopharm vaccine, although she did not suggest saline.

Dr Quah said in the statement that he used saline because it was commonly found in clinics and harmless to human beings.

He also claimed that Koh suggested other ideas for helping people delay or avoid vaccination, for example by having a positive COVID-19 test.

“TOKEN OF GRATITUDE” FOR SALINE JABS

The doctor also told ASP Lim that he did not intend to harm anyone or profit through the saline injections, but wanted to help those in need.

He said in the statement that one family of three offered him S$1,000 to S$6,000 for saline injections that would be recorded as COVID-19 vaccinations.

However, he said he interpreted this as a “token of gratitude” rather than payment, and said he would not reject patients who offered to pay more. 

One of Dr Quah’s patients, David Christopher Newton, was previously convicted and jailed for paying S$6,000 for saline shots for him and his unsuspecting wife in December 2021 and January 2022.

Checks by CNA in August 2021 showed that clinics in Singapore priced the two-dose Sinopharm vaccine at about S$98 or S$99, with GST.

In his statement, Dr Quah also said that Chua was the only member of his staff at the clinics who knew about the saline shots, and that Chua had been working for him for the past two years to deliver medicines and run medical errands.

He described Chua as the “middleman” who liaised between Koh, the patients and the clinic, and the one who collected the money from the patients and passed it to him.

Dr Quah also told ASP Lim that he let Chua keep about 30 per cent of the takings as he wanted to help Chua improve his financial situation.

He said that Koh did not get any money out of the alleged arrangement.

Dr Quah also claimed that after a couple offered S$6,000 for their saline jabs, he became uncomfortable with receiving such a large amount and asked Chua to communicate to patients that they would only take a maximum of S$1,500.

During cross-examination, Dr Quah’s lawyer questioned ASP Lim on whether he knew the contents of a statement that the doctor had recorded with the Ministry of Health before taking his statement at the police station, and whether his questions presupposed Dr Quah’s confession to the allegations.

The cross-examination is expected to continue on Tuesday.

If found guilty of dishonestly making a false representation, the punishment is imprisonment for up to 20 years, a fine or both for each charge.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated after charges were amended to reflect that the trio are accused of criminal conspiracy to cheat the Health Promotion Board, not the Ministry of Health.