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Dr E is a consultant ophthalmologist in a public hospital who is often involved in the procurement of expensive medical equipment for his department.  The procurement department of the hospital will seek Dr E’s views while drafting the specifications and in the course of purchase.   He has a strong influence on the final selection of supplier through his assessment on the performance of the equipment.

During the procurement of equipment for oculoplastics, Billy, the sales director of a potential supplier, asked Dr E to comment favourably on the equipment produced by his company.  He proposed to pay for the passage and accommodation for Dr E to visit the company’s laboratory in New  York  and  take  the  convenience  to  attend  an  important  medical conference there.   After the trip, Dr E recommended the hospital to offer the contract to Billy’s company.

Dr M, the Chief of Service of the Paediatric Department of a public hospital, has the approving authority for purchases not exceeding $100,000. His girlfriend Phoebe is a sales manager of a large medical equipment company.

Recently, David, the Department Operations Manager, recommended a replacement of a medical equipment and the sourcing was in progress. As Dr M knew that Phoebe was being pressured by her boss to secure more business for the company, he offered to help her.  After going through the quotations obtained by David, Dr M found that the price quoted by Phoebe was not the lowest.  He thus asked David to mark up the quotations of other companies so that he could secure the contract of the medical equipment to Phoebe’s company.   In order to please Dr M, David agreed to the proposal.

Dr J is a general practitioner in private practice.   On one occasion, his friend Tony, an insurance agent, suggested to him a plan for earning quick money.   The Personal Accident Insurance Policy (PAI) offered by his company would provide insurance compensation for an injury caused by an accident resulting in death, permanent or temporary disability to an insured.   All claims under the PAI had to be supported by a form issued and signed by a registered doctor in Hong Kong.   Tony knew many construction workers and, as a first step, he  would  suggest  to  them  to  buy  PAI  policies  from  him.    These individuals would make claims later, even though they just suffered from minor injuries.   What Dr J could help was to exaggerate the seriousness of the injuries when filling in the worker's claim forms as the attendant doctor, thus resulting in higher compensation payments.   The “profit” could then be split among all parties.