Why SGH Consultant convicted of trying to kill father, still employed by SGH?

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

SINGAPORE: A Singapore General Hospital (SGH) senior consultant charged with threatening her 81-year-old father with a knife and for physically hurting him was sentenced to 12 months' supervised probation on Wednesday (Jan 6).

Tham Kwang Wei, 43, is also required to comply with medication and psychiatric treatment prescribed by a psychiatrist at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH).

Tham had earlier admitted to threatening and causing hurt to her father, Dr Tham Ngiap Boo.

ATTACK WAS TO RETRIEVE MONEY "OWED TO GOD"

The court had heard that on the morning of Sep 30, 2014, Tham approached her father at his Whampoa Drive clinic and demanded he give her S$150,000, which she claimed he owed God.

A clinic assistant, Ms Chew Siew Chong, 65, responded to the victim's call for help, but she was forced out of the room by Tham. Ms Chew then called the police.

When Tham's father refused to give her the money, she took out an 18cm-long knife and held it to his neck. She later forced him onto a chair and held his neck in an armlock. As Tham's father was struggling and tried to get free, Ms Chew intervened and took the knife away. Amidst the struggle, Tham bit her father’s left forearm.

Aside from one charge each for criminal intimidation and voluntarily causing hurt to her father, two other charges were also taken into account for Tham. They include that for being armed with a knife at the clinic, and for forging her father's signature for a cheque for the sum of S$28,029.90. Tham has since returned the amount to her father according to her lawyer, Mr Selva K Naidu.

A "WARNING OF THE DANGERS OF UNTREATED DEPRESSION": JUDGE

A report from Tham's psychiatrist at IMH stated that at the time of the alleged offence, Tham was was suffering from "depression with psychotic features".

In mitigation, Tham's lawyer noted that the psychiatrist said there was "substantial causal link" between her mental disorder and her offence, and that since the diagnosis, Tham had complied with all the directions of the psychiatrist and continued to be treated and monitored by him.

DPP Sia Jiazheng and Mr Naidu agreed that probation was the most appropriate form of punishment for Tham's conduct.

However, Mr Naidu asked for a shorter period of probation than the recommended period of 21 months.

In sentencing Tham, District Judge Mathew Joseph said the court had considered that while Tham was a first-time offender, she was "not a typical first offender who succumbed to crime because of greed, personal gain or other selfish reasons".

Her case was instead "a stark reminder of the dangers of untreated depression, combined with high work levels and personal stress", he said.

"Such depression can creep up suddenly and almost overnight destroy a person, and it is also no respecter of person or status".

Noting that both Tham and her father, who is also a doctor, did not suspect that she was mentally ill before the incident, he called for employers, schools, institutions, families and friends to "be vigilant, and pay special heed to an affected person who is in most cases unaware of their own condition, before it escalates to unpleasant consequences as we have seen in this case".

Judge Joseph also noted that Tham "clearly realised the wrongfulness of (her) offending conduct", and called it "commendable" that she had since recovered and returned to work.

Tham is still employed with SGH. She is currently senior consultant with the hospital’s Department of Endocrinology, and director of both the LIFE Centre and the Obesity and Metabolic Unit.

"You have healed many others, and now is the time for your own healing and for you to seek the help of others," the judge said, adding that Tham's medical skills were still intact and that the court was of the view that she may continue to contribute as a useful member of society in the days ahead.

Judge Joseph also said that Tham should seek "healing and reconciliation with her father". "It may not be easy, but you need to try for both your sake and your father's so that you may leave behind the past and move on."


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