Doctor who sold cough syrup wholesale jailed, fined

A doctor who made $266,800 from selling codeine-based cough syrup wholesale to three patients has been sentenced to seven-and-a-half months' jail and fined $60,000. 

Ho Thong Chew, 41, was sentenced on Friday, about a month after he pleaded guilty to 35 charges. 

He had sold more than 800 canisters of the cough syrup to three of his patients. 

The cough syrup was in turn sold to codeine abusers. 

Ho's offences were discovered after the Health Sciences Authority was alerted about the large volume of codeine-based cough syrup bought by the clinic in Ang Mo Kio between January and May 2011. 

The father of two had been running his own clinic, Focus Medical Group, for seven years until it was shut down recently by the Health Ministry. 

District Judge Christopher Goh said a doctor's prerogative is to heal and pointed out that Ho has caused harm instead. 

He added that Ho abused his position as a medical practitioner and played an active role in selling the codeine-laced syrup to reap a vast profit. 

The judge added that Ho was consumed by greed and wasn't as naïve and innocent as he put himself to be during mitigation.