She is also to be fined $10,000 in a case involving overcharging a member of the Brunei royal family. She will also be censured in writing and must undertake not to overcharge again.

Dr Lim, 57, is appealing against the punishment, which was revealed in appeal papers she filed in the High Court last week.

The punishment is believed to be among the most severe meted out to an errant doctor, short of being struck off.

She will continue to practise pending the outcome of the appeal. The appeal before the Court of Three Judges is due to be heard in the week of Jan 14 next year.

The court papers, seen by The Straits Times yesterday, revealed that Dr Lim was found guilty last month of 94 charges of professional misconduct.

This included making false representations in some invoices she sent to other medical specialists she called in to treat the patient.

The dispute centres on the bill she charged for treating Pengiran Anak Hajah Damit, the sister of the Brunei queen, before the patient died of cancer in 2007.

The bills for her last seven months came up to about $25 million. But she has argued the figure was actually lower and included the cost of flying the patient between Singapore and Brunei.

The bill size shocked Singapore’s Health Ministry, which filed charges of professional misconduct against her with the Singapore Medical Council (SMC) in 2010.

It led to a protracted battle between Dr Lim and the SMC from January 2010 to December last year, with disciplinary hearings as well as court judgments that upheld the medical tribunal’s right to hold the hearings.

Among other things, it emerged in March last year that she tried to stop the disciplinary hearing against her by writing to the Foreign Minister, to alert him that it might expose information that could cause “unnecessary embarrassment” to Brunei and affect bilateral ties.

The case now before the Court of Three Judges is expected to shape up to be the final battle royale. It will give the medical profession the opportunity to clarify issues like what constitutes overcharging.

In her appeal, Dr Lim is not only asking for the penalties to be dismissed. She also wants the court to declare that she is not liable for the costs of the hearings before the disciplinary committees and the Court of Three Judges.

Her lawyer, Senior Counsel Lee Eng Beng, told The Straits Times yesterday she will argue that the SMC’s disciplinary committee had made “errors in law and errors of fact” in reaching its decision.

One of her main arguments is that Singapore has no guidelines on the maximum fee that a doctor can charge a patient, and that fees charged are agreed on between a doctor and a patient.

She said in the court papers filed that her patients range from the man in the street to politicians and military leaders of various countries, as well as various members of royal families. She added that she has never been the subject of disciplinary proceedings aside from this conviction.

“I did my very best and went beyond the call of duty for the patient,” she said referring to her Brunei patient.

Dr Lim, who is overseas, could not be contacted yesterday. The SMC said it was “not in a position to comment on the matter”.

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About Dr Susan Lim

Susan Lim is a Singaporean surgeon who performed the first successful liver transplant in Singapore in 1990.[1]

She was born in Singapore, where she was educated at Singapore Chinese Girls’ School and the Raffles Institution.[2] In 1974, she was awarded a scholarship under the Colombo Plan to study medicine at Monash University in Australia.[3]

In 2003, she started a biotechnology company, Stem Cell Technologies.[4]

In 2004, she became a Fellow of Trinity College at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She is the youngest fellow and first Singaporean to be conferred this honour.[5]

She established together with her 2nd husband, Deepak Sharma, and friend, Satpal Khattar, the Indiapore Trust with the aim of providing assistance to underprivileged children from countries in the region. The first Singapore charity to be supported by the Indiapore Trust, through a donation of $50,000, was the Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund, which assists struggling parents to meet their children’s school expenses. To date, the Trust has donated a science laboratory to the Raffles Junior College, and provided scholarships to underprivileged children in Singapore and India.[5]

She sits on the Global Advisory Council of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) 2011.[6]

In February 2011 the Singapore Medical Council (SMC) was presenting a case to investigate an accusation from the Ministry of Health regarding complaints of overcharging a patient.[7]

In April 2011, Dr Susan Lim gave a presentation at TED on the topic of “Transplanting cells, not organs”.

In August 2012, Dr Susan Lim was suspended from practicing for 3 years due to her conviction by the Singapore Medical Council of overcharging her patient, a member of the Brunei royal family. [8], [9]

Source From Wikipedia

IN the latest sign of a revival in the high-end bungalow market, a seafronting bungalow at Cove Drive has changed hands at $39 million, a record absolute price for a bungalow in the upscale waterfront residential district of Sentosa Cove.

This surpasses the previous high of $36 million for a bungalow on Paradise Island that was transacted in 2010. That worked out to $2,403 per square foot (psf) on land area of 14,983 sq ft for the waterway-facing property.

According to The Straits Times, the home is believed to be owned by embattled surgeon Susan Lim, who was alleged to have charged a member of the Brunei royal family $24.8 million for seven months of treatments. She was also said to have made false representations in invoices. She later took the Singapore Medical Council (SMC) court to bloack an inquiry by a second medical disciplinary committee looking into complaints on overcharging.

In the latest deal at Cove Drive, the price works out to $2,448 psf based on the land area of 15,929 sq ft. The property is understood to have been sold by a Singaporean to a buyer from India who is said to be involved in the resources sector.

The completed bungalow includes five bedrooms, a spacious living area and an entertainment room. Newsman Realty represented the seller.

Residential properties on Sentosa Cove have 99-year leasehold tenure.

The previous record for a Sentosa Cove home was the sale of a 14,983 sq ft bungalow on Paradise Island. Located in the northern part of Sentosa Cove, the bungalow is believed to have been bought by a Singapore permanent resident from China, Mr Shen Bin.

He is believed to be the son of Shen Wen Rong, the president of Chinese firm Sha Steel. The elder Mr Shen is listed as the 13th richest person in China in the 2011 Hurun Wealth Report.

On mainland Singapore, too, talk in the market is that another headline-grabbing price may be set in a Good Class Bungalow Area (GCBA) involving a vacant plot at Jervois Hill. The agreed price is said to be $31 million or about $2,050 psf based on the freehold site’s land area of around 15,120 sq ft.

A Singaporean investor is thought to have entered a deal to sell the land to a party who is said to have paid a higher-than-normal option deposit. The deal also involves a completion period of one year – longer than the usual three months. Word on the street is that the buyer will be applying to become a Singapore citizen.

Purchases of landed homes on mainland Singapore by foreigners (including permanent residents) is restricted. Such buyers have to obtain permission from the Land Dealings (Approval) Unit or LDAU. Applicants have to fulfil certain criteria before permission is granted, including being a Singapore PR and making significant economic contribution to the country.

Sentosa Cove is the only place in Singapore where non-PR foreigners may buy a landed home, though still subject to LDAU approval.

A foreigner (including a PR) may own only one landed home in Singapore (including Sentosa Cove) and this must be used for own occupation. The land area for the property must not exceed 15,000 sq ft.

Property market watchers say the $2,050 psf for the Jervois plot is a new high for the area. ‘That’s the kind of pricing one would expect in the Nassim and Dalvey areas,’ said a seasoned GCB agent.

Last week, BT reported that motoring tycoon Peter Kwee had sold a vacant plot of about 23,920 sq ft at Nassim Road for about $47.8 million or $2,000 psf.

The psf record price for a GCBA is held by 6 Chatsworth Road, which transacted at $2,081 psf in July last year. This slightly surpassed the previous record of $2,038 psf for 16 Cluny Road set in February 2011. That deal in turn broke the previous high of $1,899 psf for 32H Nassim Road in October 2007. However, the Chatsworth bungalow and 32H Nassim Road have smaller land areas than the typical minimum GCB plot size of 15,069.50 sq ft.

When GCBAs were gazetted in 1980, they included some smaller existing sites. These are still considered GCBs as they would be bound by the other GCB planning rules if they were to be redeveloped. For instance, such plots cannot be further sub-divided.

Another recent GCBA deal is at Wilby Road, where an old two-storey bungalow sold for $15.2 million or $1,093 psf. The site area is 13,906 sq ft. RealStar Premier Group represented the buyer. Other recent bungalow deals outside GCBAs are said to include a property at Jalan Arnap in the prime One Tree Hill locale, which fetched $12.5 million or about $1,710 psf based on land area of about 7,300 sq ft. On site is an over 30-year-old bungalow.

At Jalan Jambu Ayer in the Binjai Park area, an old bungalow on a rectangular plot with land area of about 7,212 sq ft and wide frontage of about 17 metres is understood to have changed hands recently for $9 million or about $1,248 psf. At Sunset View in the Clementi area, RealStar brokered the sale of a freehold bungalow for $7.5 million or $1,190 psf based on land area of 6,302 sq ft.

After an initial knee-jerk reaction to the introduction of the additional buyer’s stamp duty (ABSD) that took effect on Dec 8, house hunters have started to return to the bungalow market since the Chinese New Year period.

On Sentosa Cove, Newsman Realty managing director KH Tan said foreign interest is returning, with potential buyers from places like China, Indonesia and India. ‘They come from a range of backgrounds, including, industrialists (eg in the coal-mining industry) and even developers from China. Some have children studying in Singapore while others find Singapore an interesting global city. They believe there’s room for substantial price appreciation in Singapore bungalow prices.’

On the GCB front, Coldwell Banker Realtors managing director Alexs Chua said although transaction volumes have slipped, transacted prices are generally holding well.

‘Some sellers are revising their prices now – not because prices are set to fall but rather they have realised they had overpriced right from the start. In the prime GCB locations such as Nassim, Dalvey or Tanglin, sellers would rather withdraw their properties from the market than lower their prices.

‘However, in the less prime GCB estates where demand is not as strong, some sellers have adjusted their asking prices and usually these are the motivated ones. Those who don’t need to sell their GCBs acknowledge that this is not exactly the best time to do so,’ he added.

Under the ABSD regime, PRs pay 3 per cent ABSD on their second and subsequent residential property while Singaporeans pay the same ABSD rate on their third and subsequent residential property. Foreigners, however, must pay 10 per cent ABSD on any residential property purchased in Singapore.

But the numbers she quoted (see below) made no sense, and annoyed this reader. They in no way supported her point that, This was a huge loss-making assignment. (Yahoo carried this report. My quotes are from the original BT report.)

She points to a detailed report produced by KordaMentheNeo’s Owain Stone, an expert in forensic accounting, which concludes – among other things – that the daily breakeven cost for Dr Lim’s practice, over a six-month period in 2007 during which she worked intensely on the patient, amounts to $46,000.

This compares to the $58,000 a day she billed the patient for, which included overtime pay and work done outside Singapore not factored into the calculation of the $46,000.

Her comments had this number cruncher wanting to know more because these numbers do not support her point that, This was a huge loss-making assignment.

Juz using her numbers, she made a net profit of $2.18m for these six months or 182 days: (58- 46) x 182 x 1000. Extrapolate these numbers and one gets a yearly income of $4.38m. Now $4.38m is close to the figure another surgeon (Ng Eng Hen) is alleged to have earned in the year before he entered politics. $4m is serious money for us lesser mortals.

Granted I “cheated” as, the $58,000 a day she billed the patient for, which included overtime pay and work done outside Singapore not factored into the calculation of the $46,000. True, but shouldn’t the accountants have added these overtime and overseas work into the breakeven cost so that the breakeven cost increases?*

And if they didn’t, why not? Proper accounting for costs is not rocket science, but sumething first- year students are taught in management accounting courses.

And if they did account for these, why didn’t she quote these numbers? They could have shown that her practice did lose money on the assignment.

Another question that is begging for an answer is, “Do the breakeven cost of $46,000 include any payments to you in the form of salary, director’s fees or advance payments?”. If they do, these numbers should have been disclosed by her when she bandied these numbers. These would have given an analyst a better understanding of what went into calculating the breakeven.

I’m not accusing Susan Lim or her accountants of anything shady or stupid. I’m juz trying to understand how the numbers she quoted prove that, This was a huge loss-making assignment.

And I am expected to believe her when she says her practice is technically bankrupt? Certainly not on the numbers she quoted.

Maybe the numbers are all there, but Susan Lim had airheads as her media handlers and advisers. From my experience, this is a not uncommon occurrence. They goofed, she suffered.

Whatever the case may be, the moral of the story is, “Don’t play play with numbers”. And don’t employ PR people who are uncomfortable with number. BTW I was a PR person for a short spell. And I am comfortable with numbers. And I was a lawyer.

*This was corrected at 7.40pm on 21 June 2011. “True, but shouldn’t the accountants have added these overtime and overseas work into the breakeven cost while deducting them from the billings, so that the breakeven cost increases and the billings decrease?”

This case has exposed some injustices in the way our ministries, Singapore medical council (SMC) and their official bearers operate in our current society.

Gone is the adage that “one is innocent until proven guilty”. As can be seen in Dr Susan Lim’s case, legislation can be passed and changed in an instant to suit the authorities, rules can be bent and twisted to suit the persecutors. While this may speed up the process in a case when a person is 100% guilty, have you ever considered if YOU are inadvertently caught on the wrong side of the law but are actually innocent?

As Martin Luther King once said: ““Justice denied anywhere diminishes justice everywhere.”

If Dr Lim was truly guilty, she will be tried and found guilty in due course. Raids on her office sanctioned by a member of the ministry and  medical council that “prejudged” the case certainly does not bode well for justice system.

In their case, their version of  ”law” does not protect the innocent at all. Judgement is passed without proper consideration. The way this case is carried out undermines the entire justice system and its founding principles. If we give so much power to a few top people and they are allowed to override the entire process and make their own decision as to who is guilty prior to hearing a case, then we are dooming our very democratic principles.

“Justice and power must be brought together so that whoever is just may be powerful and whatever is powerful may be just.”

I feel that the Susan Lim case is only a smokescreen for something bigger. The Straits Times who has been curiously sensationalizing the entire episode has not captured the real crux of the matter. Whether Dr Lim is found guilty should be a matter for the courts to decide in due course. It should not however be pre-judged by the media and the disciplinary committee before a fair trial, and neither should we allow justice be subverted for the convenience of the authorities.

My contention is this: If this is such an “open and shut” case as the SMC or MOH has put it, wouldn’t it be simple to try this case according to normal principles of justice and win? As MM Lee has once put it, he has to be “whiter than white” because he is in a positon of power. I am afraid SMC and the top guns who have now chosen to remain behind a screen of silence may need to learn from his sound guiding principles. Dr Lim may be guilty or not but her case has exposed the hypocrisy and shortcomings of a medical council as a whole. The SMC and MOH has a long way to go to learn how it can exert proper authority in a balanced and fair manner.

With the healthcare costs rising in recent years, Singapore’s elderly cringe each time a private practitioner charges an astronomical fee, wondering if it will set a new benchmark.

AN accumulated S$24.8mil (RM60mil) medical bill charged to a single patient has become a sensation in this city of rising millionaires.

It has rocked the senses of Singaporeans who are no strangers to tales of individual wealth and lavish spending in recent years – as well as big-money scandals.

The latest blew up when top transplant surgeon Dr Susan Lim billed a member of Brunei’s royal family S$26mil (including Goods and Services Tax) for seven months’ breast cancer treatment.

The family of Pangiran Anak Hajah Damit, the cousin of the Brunei Sultan and sister of the Queen, who succumbed to her illness in 2007, complained about the bill.

This brought the Singapore Medical Council (SMC) into the scene. It first held an informal hearing, then decided to hold a formal investigation into the issue of overcharging.

Dr Lim, who gained fame when she performed the first successful liver transplant in Asia, has applied to the High Court for a judicial review to stop this inquiry.

It was, of course, the S$24.8mil medical fee that numbed the minds of Singaporeans, who are themselves badly hit by rising healthcare costs.

The lawyer for the Medical Council said that the bills of other doctors who had helped Lim were significantly marked up.

She inflated a third party specialist’s bill of S$400 to S$211,000.

Another’s bill of S$500 was inflated to S$93,500, and a third doctor’s charge of S$3,000 was blown up to S$285,100.

Singaporeans are worried that every time a private specialist doctor charges an astronomical fee, it will set or re-set new benchmarks for ordinary citizens.

Overwhelmingly, Singaporeans consider Lim’s fee was excessive despite the patient’s considerable wealth and her demands to be treated in Brunei by no one but Dr Lim.

Each time the surgeon would have to leave behind her practice, sometimes for days, to travel to Brunei.

“This must be a world record. In some countries, S$24.8mil is enough to buy an entire hospital,” observed a housewife.

“That could pay for several houses in Canada!” a surfer exclaimed. With the money, Lim could also purchase one of several small companies listed in the Singapore Stock Exchange.

When SMC investigated the fee, Lim offered to discount it by half, and later reduced to just over S$3mil.

Opting to maintain ties, Lim then offered to entirely waive the fee if the Brunei government would give her “a letter of good standing”. This was turned down.

Not surprisingly, many specialist doctors backed her, arguing this was purely a commercial deal in which the government should not have interfered.

Mar Dadia and Wilfred Cabrera convince me to sing with them for Father’s day at Powerhouse, Tunasan-our home church now.It was a medley of  “Your Name /Potter’s Hand”. And we were a hit-or maybe I should say-we are bound to be hit by a rock.

The Women’s group also prepared also a number for us-and what can we say except they are awesome to behold!

My kids also surprised me with their thoughts and notes of gratitude. All fathers in the church were given a certificate of appreciation and gift certificate for Starbucks.

Afterwards, my family and I went ot Festival Mall to eat our lunch at-Greenwich. My favorite is the lasagna and the bread stick-preferably two pieces. It was quite a day-since there are many other families there too celebrating as well.

Raniel and I left Festival Mall and went to Medical Center Parañaque-since my mother is sick with asthma-like coughing. i was able to pray for her and talked with Dra Susan Lim ( our family doctor-and a friend and sister-in-the-Lord). By 5 PM we left for Loyola Memorial Park to place some flowers on the tomb my father-who died last March 19, 2009. I was able to meet Engr Vic Argana there too-just leaving his father’s tomb. He is the former engineer of the City of Muntinlupa during the time of Mayor Bunyi.

I am hoping that my daddy is now able to rest in the presence of the Lord-and is now studying the Word of God which he despised for a long time before succumbing to it near the end of his life. At the end of the day-It is really -our Father’s day-who makes all theses things possible.