Hong Kong government dentist gets maximum 240 hours of community service over free treatment and fake records
She booked her brother even though he wasn’t eligible for clinic because she deemed his recommended care inadequate
A retiring senior government dentist who faked appointment records to make time for administrative work and offer free dental treatment to her brother was slapped a maximum penalty of 240 hours of community service on Tuesday.
Janet Lau Wing-kam, 54, pleaded guilty last month to two counts of access to a computer with criminal or dishonest intent and another of fraud.
Kwun Tong Court heard that Lau had, since April 2013, supervised Madam Yung Fung Shee Health Centre in Kwun Tong, a government clinic that provides free dental services to eligible persons such as pensioners, civil servants and their dependents.
All appointments were logged into a computer system to manage records as well as to assess Lau’s performance.
The records showed she logged an appointment for retired civil servant Kwan Ka-lun on June 5, 2014, and made another for Correctional Services employee Wong Yeung-fai on May 5 last year — despite neither of them booking appointments.
Defence counsel Thomas Iu had explained that these appointments were falsified because Lau needed to make time for handling the clinic’s administrative paperwork.