KUALA LUMPUR, April 29 — A Malaysian doctor practicing in Australia has been suspended pending an investigation into his online posts allegedly saying that “some women deserve to be raped”.
Guardian Australia reported that Dr Christopher Kwan Chen Lee — who is currently working as an emergency doctor at Box Hill Hospital that is a part of Eastern Health, one of Melbourne’s biggest public health services — was told not to come back to work after public outrage over his posts, even though his suspension was only due in May.
“Some women deserve to be raped, and that supercilious little bitch fits the bill in every way,” Dr Lee was quoted saying online.
He also allegedly posted about another woman: “She needs to be abandoned in India and repeatedly raped in order for her to wake up her idea.”
Eastern Health reportedly said in a statement that Dr Lee was suspended pending the completion of its investigation.
“We wish to advise that Eastern Health takes the issue of professional misconduct very seriously … we value diversity, inclusivity and living together respectfully and do not tolerate disrespectful comments or racism in any form.”
The Tasmanian health practitioners tribunal had, earlier this month, suspended Dr Lee for six weeks over “numerous inappropriate and offensive comments” posted in a Singaporean online forum in 2016, according to ABC News. Dr Lee previously worked in Tasmania. The suspension, however, prohibits him from working anywhere in Australia.
Almost 1,000 people at the time of writing have signed an online petition calling for Dr Lee’s Australian medical license to be revoked.
Guardian Australia also reported that Dr Lee had posted photographs of patient X-rays and medical procedures he performed.
The Tasmanian tribunal heard that the 31-year-old Malaysian wrote in one of his posts: “If my marriage fell apart, it would not end in divorce. It would end in murder.”
Guardian Australia reported that Dr Lee also posted that if his wife fell pregnant, he would force an abortion by kicking “her down the stairs”.
He allegedly posted a woman’s nude photos on the internet without her consent after she criticised him online.
In a post last February, Dr Lee allegedly disparaged Singaporean women, calling them “some of the most materialistic, pampered and self-entitled women you are likely to meet anywhere.”
Chinese women, he said, were “calculating, ruthless animals.”
Dr Lee, a Malaysian who studied medicine in Melbourne, reportedly said: “Malaysian and Australian authorities can’t touch me for things I say on a Singaporean forum.”
ABC News reported that a joint submission by Dr Lee and the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) to the Tasmanian tribunal stressed that the doctor’s views in chat forums had not influenced his medical practice.
“Doctor cannot be scathing? Doctor cannot be vulgar? Doctor cannot scold people? Fug you all lah,” Dr Lee was quoted saying in an online post.
He reportedly told the tribunal that he was “relatively young and inexperienced” when he made the online comments.
The Australasian College for Emergency Medicine said in a statement that it viewed “discrimination and other unacceptable behaviour and conduct as having no place in the practice of emergency medicine or medicine more broadly, and notes all aspects of the reasons outlined in relation to the determination.”
