Hong Kong microbiologist struck off medical register for year after being jailed for fraud, misconduct in public office
- Medical Council says Joseph Kam has not shown remorse over HK$4.25 million fraud case in which World Health Organization, two overseas institutions were deceived
- Kam was convicted in the District Court of four charges of misconduct in public office and two of fraud in 2022
A former consultant microbiologist with the Hong Kong government has been struck off the medical register for a year after being sentenced to 31 months in jail for misconduct in public office and fraud.
Kam was convicted in the District Court of four charges of misconduct in public office and two of fraud upon his own admission.
“We are shocked that the defendant still maintained that he was not dishonest, and had derived no benefit from all the sums involved,” wrote Dr Gabriel Choi Kin, chairman of the council’s inquiry panel into Kam’s case.
The watchdog removed Kam’s name from the general register for medical practitioners for 12 months.
Choi said the criminal offences Kam committed were “very serious” and involved dishonesty and breach of trust over a long period of time, and that he had served a prison sentence.
“However, we still do not find the defendant [to be] remorseful,” he said. “There is nothing to convince us the defendant has [been] rehabilitated.”
Hong Kong health expert jailed for 31 months over scheme to deceive WHO
The council said that while Kam, who was 64 when he was convicted, had fully paid back the sums involved to the authorities, it did not accept the move was done out of remorse. It said Kam had told the council he had done so and pleaded guilty to the charges hoping not to lose the sentence discounts he might be entitled to.
They said a registered medical practitioner should be “a person of unquestionable integrity, probity and trustworthiness”.
Choi said: “Any person who lacks any of these essential attributes can hardly be a fit and proper person to practise medicine.”
The District Court previously heard that between September 2005 and March 2014, Kam had falsely portrayed the Hong Kong Association of Medical Microbiologists, a group he co-founded in 1992, as having official connections with local health authorities to deceive the WHO, a Japanese government research institute and a Swiss non-profit organisation.
He misrepresented to the WHO that his association was a partner of the government laboratory and was authorised to sign six service agreements between 2009 and 2014.
The WHO paid the association service fees totalling US$144,060, with the money subsequently moved to Kam’s personal bank account.
Kam also made bogus claims to Japan’s National Institute of Infectious Diseases between 2005 and 2012 that the association was affiliated with the city’s health department to receive grants worth 15 million yen (US$99,000) from the Japanese government.
Between 2009 and 2012, Kam duped the Geneva-based Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics into paying him US$239,951 in service fees by claiming it could not contact the laboratory directly and had to make payments via the association.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption arrested Kam in June 2014 but did not charge him until 2021, owing to the time needed to get evidence from foreign organisations.
Kam was a consultant microbiologist of directorate level at the Public Health Laboratory Services Branch under the Centre for Health Protection from June 2004 until the start of his pre-retirement leave in September 2012.
