Doctors, vendors handed suspended jail sentences
By Chen Chien-chih and Hollie Younger / Staff reporter, with staff writer
Two doctors were handed suspended sentences yesterday after they allowed three medical device vendors to participate in 13 neurological surgeries at Taichung Veterans General Hospital between March 2023 and October last year.
The Taichung District Court sentenced Yang Meng-yin (楊孟寅), former director of the hospital’s oncology neurosurgery division, and Cheng Wen-yu (鄭文郁), former director of minimally invasive neurosurgery, to one year and four months, and one year and two months respectively. Both sentences were suspended for four years.
The three medical vendors, who did not hold physician qualifications, pleaded guilty and received sentences of one year, eight months and eight months suspended for three years. All five verdicts may be appealed.
Taichung Veterans General Hospital is pictured in an undated photograph.
Photo: Tsai Shu-yuan, Taipei Times
As the doctors admitted to the offenses and reached settlements with the victims, they asked the court to grant them suspended sentences.
The court said that Yang and Cheng had reached settlements with all of the victims.
In January, the Taichung District Prosecutors’ Office indicted Yang, Cheng and the three medical device suppliers on suspicion of fraud under the Criminal Code and contraventions of the Physicians Act (醫師法).
The indictment alleged that Yang and Cheng allowed the three vendors to illegally perform medical procedures such as bone screw implants, electrocoagulation and tissue extraction during surgeries such as endoscopic spinal fusion operations.
The procedures seriously endangered the patients’ lives and physical safety, and compromised the quality of medical care, prosecutors said.
The investigation found that Yang and Cheng were seeking to reduce their workload and consolidate their working relationships with the medical device suppliers.
The five defendants also applied to the National Health Insurance Administration for consultation and surgical fees, despite knowing that procedures performed by unlicensed people are not eligible for coverage, the indictment said.
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