By Yun Suh-young
An unlicensed doctor of Oriental medicine was sentenced to prison for earning more than 100 million won in illegal treatment fees and biting a female patient’s buttocks, a court said Wednesday.
The Seoul Northern District Court sentenced the 55 year-old man named Lee to two and a half years in prison and fined him 5 million won. He was also ordered to have his personal information publicly revealed.
Lee had been operating a health center in Nowon, Seoul, from August 2007 to December 2010 without a proper license. At the center, he practiced acupressure treatment with shock rods to adjust the bones and administered acupuncture to patients. He collected 122 million won from 153 patients.
Lee also injured a female patient while trying to harass her. He bit a 55 year-old woman’s buttocks pretending it was a form of acupressure treatment. The patient, in the process of trying to push him away, fell from the bed and sustained bruises that took two weeks to heal.
“It was necessary to sentence him to prison time because the doctor did not seem to feel remorse for his wrongdoings and took advantage of the fact that the patients trusted him,” the court said in its ruling.