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Doctor found guilty of 'systematically' defrauding HSE
🇮🇪 Ireland /Crime & Justice

Doctor found guilty of 'systematically' defrauding HSE

From RTÉ News · () English

Summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

News Named sources Outcome reported
  • A doctor has been found guilty of defrauding the Health Service Executive (HSE) through its medical card payment scheme.
  • Dr. Muhammad Waqas Rabbani was convicted of 13 fraud counts after a two-week trial at Carlow Circuit Court.
  • The jury heard that claim forms for treatments that were never performed were submitted to the HSE, resulting in over €2,200 being paid to the doctor.

Dr. Muhammad Waqas Rabbani has been found guilty of "systematically" defrauding the Health Service Executive (HSE) through its medical card payment scheme. A jury at Carlow Circuit Court delivered the verdict after a two-week trial, convicting Rabbani of 13 fraud counts while acquitting him on four others. The charges related to €2,229.72 paid to the doctor by the HSE in October 2018 for treatments allegedly performed between September 3 and 29, 2018.

a systemic attempt to defraud the HSE

— Mark Lynam BLProsecuting barrister Mark Lynam BL described the offending in his closing speech to the jury.

During the trial, prosecuting barrister Mark Lynam BL described the actions as "a systemic attempt to defraud the HSE," stating that claim forms for treatments to medical card patients were created "for the purpose of tricking the HSE" and had never actually been performed. Evidence from 48 civilian witnesses supported this, with many testifying that they had not received the treatments Dr. Rabbani claimed and some even stating they did not recognize the signatures on the forms.

for the purpose of tricking the HSE

— Mark Lynam BLProsecuting barrister Mark Lynam BL explained how claim forms were created.

The claim forms were submitted electronically to the Primary Care Reimbursement Scheme (PCRS), leading the HSE to pay Dr. Rabbani for services he did not render. Lynam noted that Rabbani had signed off on each form, admitted to submitting some through the PCRS online portal, and stood to gain financially from the fraud. The judge directed the jury to return a not guilty verdict on three additional charges due to insufficient evidence.

It’s classic Ireland

— Lorcan Staines BLDefending barrister Lorcan Staines BL made analogies between the state's slow pace in bringing the case to trial.

Defending barrister Lorcan Staines BL highlighted the eight-year delay in bringing the case to trial, drawing parallels to slow systems in Ireland. He also alluded to Rabbani's character, noting he continued to see patients in the evenings after the trial and worked long hours due to a large patient load in September 2018. Staines argued that Rabbani had effectively been punished enough due to the financial and reputational costs of the trial, especially since the HSE froze funds to him in 2018, meaning there was no actual financial loss to the executive. Dr. Rabbani was remanded on continuing bail, with sentencing to be scheduled on July 31.

he has effectively been punished sufficiently

— Lorcan Staines BLDefending barrister Lorcan Staines BL argued that Dr. Rabbani had already suffered enough due to the trial's costs.
DistantNews Editorial

Originally published by RTÉ News. Summarized and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

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