Famous doctors Yang Mengyin (right) and Zheng Wenyu (left) of the Zhongrong Neurological Center were sentenced to 1 year in April and Zheng Wenyu in the first trial for allowing medical material vendors to perform surgeries on 13 patients. They were both sentenced to 4 years of probation. (Extracted from Zhongrong official website)
Yang Mengyin, former director of neurosurgery oncology at the Taichung Veterans General Hospital, and Cheng Wenyu, former director of minimally invasive neurosurgery at the Taichung Veterans General Hospital, were accused of allowing a medical material dealer without medical qualifications to enter the operating room to perform surgery on his behalf. They were sentenced to one year and four months in prison and one year and two months in prison in the first instance. Both were suspended for four years. After reviewing the verdict, the Taichung District Prosecutor's Office believed that the two doctors had not agreed on the use of part of the evidence and filed an appeal today (2).
The CCDI pointed out that Yang Mengyin and Zheng Wenyu, in order to facilitate labor services and consolidate cooperative relations with medical material manufacturers, instructed three medical material manufacturers without medical qualifications to enter the operating room when performing spinal endoscopy and fusion surgeries, and illegally performed core medical behaviors such as electrocautery to stop bleeding, grabbing patient tissues, implanting screws, and assembling connecting rods on 13 patients, seriously endangering the lives, physical safety, and medical quality of the patients.
The prosecutor also found that medical material manufacturers were suspected of giving about 20% to 30% of sales to doctors as "public relations fees", forming a model of "doctors' names, manufacturers acting on behalf of the patients, and private profit sharing". The five people involved in the case were also accused of concealing the actual medical practices performed by the manufacturers, and fraudulently obtained NT$1.96 million in medical examination fees, surgical fees and patients' out-of-pocket expenses from the National Health Insurance Administration.
When the Taichung District Court pronounced the sentence on September 15, it found that all five people were involved in the crime of illegally performing medical services and obtaining money by fraud under Article 28 of the Physician Act. Considering that the five people pleaded guilty, completed mediation and settlement with all patients or their families, and paid compensation, and there was no evidence to prove that the patients suffered actual physical harm as a result, Yang Mengyin was sentenced to one year. April and Zheng Wenyu were sentenced to 1 and 2 months, respectively, and were sentenced to 4 years of probation; the three medical supplies dealers were sentenced to 1 year, August, and August, respectively, and were all sentenced to 3 years of probation. After considering the content of the first-instance judgment, the Central Procuratorate prosecutor admitted that two of the doctors, Yang Mengyin and Zheng Wenyu, had not yet reached agreement on the application of the original judgment, and today they filed an appeal in accordance with the law.
