Kuwait court orders dismissal of doctor who practiced for six years with fake degree

Cairo: A top Kuwaiti court has ordered the dismissal of a citizen from her medical job at the Health Ministry after investigations revealed the forgery of her university degree and using it to work as a doctor for six years.

The country’s Court of Cassation has also ordered the woman, whose name or age was not revealed, to pay a fine of 300,000 Kuwaiti dinars (Dh3.76 million/$970,306)

Prosecutors had charged the defendant with having unlawfully obtained a total of 150,000 dinars in salary from her job at the Health Ministry based on a forged document presented to the Civil Service Commission, a state agency in charge of employment.

She had also been charged with forgery after alleging to have obtained a university degree from Pakistan. Based on the bogus document, she had been granted a licence allowing her to practice medicine.

Earlier, a criminal court had handed down a seven-year jail sentence to the woman in the same case. However, an appeals court did not uphold the imprisonment sentence and instead ordered her to pay a fine amounting to a double of the state pay she had unlawfully earned from her job.

She was also ordered to present a written statement, coupled with a bail of KD3,000, pledging not to repeat the misconduct and to show good behaviour for at least two years.

In recent years, Kuwait has stepped up a crackdown on corruption and suspected waste of public money.

Last November, a Kuwaiti criminal court sentenced a government employee to seven years in prison after she was convicted of using a forged medical report to get a sick leave.

The court ordered the woman to pay a bail of 500 dinars to stay out of prison and a fine equal to a double of the state pay she got during the leave.