Cambodian doctor sentenced to 25 years for infecting 200 patients with HIV

IANS
PHNOM PENH, DECEMBER 3

A Cambodian court on Thursday sentenced an unlicensed doctor to 25 years in prison for infecting over 200 people with HIV, including some who later died.
Yem Chrin, 57, was arrested in December 2014 after most of his patients tested positive for HIV and accused him of transmitting the virus via the reuse of unsterilised needles, Xinhua news agency reported.
“The court found Yem Chrin guilty of committing torture with aggravated circumstances and decided to sentence him to 25 years in prison,” the verdict said.
It also ordered the convict to pay between $500-3,000 in compensation to each of more than 100 victims, who had filed the complaints.
The HIV outbreak in Battambang province’s rural Roka commune, infected some 290 people, with 10 elderly people dying from complications.
According to the National AIDS Authority, HIV carrier rate among Cambodian adults, aged between 15-49 years old, is 0.6 percent in 2015, down from 2.5 percent in 1998.
Currently, the country has more than 70,000 people living with HIV/AIDS. Around 85 percent of them have received antiretroviral drugs.
The case has shone a spotlight on the chronically underfunded healthcare system in the impoverished nation where many have to rely on self-taught or unlicensed medics to receive treatment.
Yem Chroeum, 55, was facing the prospect of life in prison but his murder charge was reduced by the court to a lesser manslaughter offence, his defence lawyer said.
“My client still insists he is innocent,” lawyer Em Sovann told AFP by telephone after the verdict was announced.
“I will represent him if he wants to appeal this conviction,” he added.
The rural doctor was convicted of infecting locals in the remote village of Roka in western Battambang province by reusing dirty needles.
For millions of Cambodians, especially the poor and those in isolated regions, unlicensed doctors are the only realistic healthcare option for everyday ailments.
World Bank figures say Cambodia, one of Asia’s poorest nations, has just 0.2 doctors for every 100,000 people, on a par with Afghanistan.
Much of Cambodia’s shortfall is made up by unlicensed practitioners, many of whom are self taught.
But the HIV infections in Roka shocked the country and saw the government vow to crack down on unlicensed healthcare providers.
Some of those who were infected testified at the trial.
Loeum Lorn, 52, said he and four of his family members had contracted HIV.
“We are his (the doctor’s) victims but it was only late on that we discovered we were infected,” he told reporters last month outside the trial.
He added that around 10 villagers who were infected, mostly elderly, had since died.
During the trial, prosecutors accused the doctor of hiding the facts and changing his story.