Today, Chinese national Chen Jianghong, 48, was sentenced to a month’s jail and fined RM70,000 for setting up a dental clinic without the approval of the health ministry, reported The Star Online.
Chen pleaded guilty to the charge of running a private dental clinic at a hotel room here.
Judge Harmi Thamri said Chen had committed a serious offence as he was not a qualified dentist, and that he had operated a clinic, which was not registered with the ministry.
Earlier in mitigation, Chen’s counsel, Tan Teck Yew, said his client was an assistant to a dentist and his family’s sole breadwinner.
Chen, he said, was supporting his aged parents, wife and an eight-year-old child in China.
The ministry’s deputy public prosecutor Nurul Khairiyah Samsudin urged the court to mete out a deterrent sentence in view of public interest and the safety of patients.
According to The Star Online report, Chen was detained by the ministry’s officers as he was carrying out dental treatment on a man in the hotel room. Chen was wearing a face mask and holding dental equipment in one hand while his other hand was in the man’s mouth. It was learnt that the man had sought Chen’s services to make dentures.
Harmi ordered the sentence to run from Sept 28, the day Chen was detained.
He also instructed Chen to be jailed six months if he failed to pay the fine.
Earlier this month, Farahanis, who had offered dentistry services in Malacca without a licence, was released from prison after serving six days out of her six-month jail sentence for failing to pay the RM70,000 court fine.
Controversy surrounded her case when it was reported that certain NGOs had helped raise funds for her to pay the fine and that she had received the support of the health ministry.
The Malaysian Muslim Consumers’ Association (PPIM), however, denied reports of their involvement. The health ministry, too, said they had not helped her.
However, Deputy Health Minister Dr Hilmi Yahaya said that as the Balik Pulau MP, he had extended Farahanis’ appeal letter to the ministry’s oral health division director for consideration.
Farahanis was also slammed by social media users who felt that she was unrepentant. She later offered a public apology in a video released by Harian Metro.