I’m afraid I’m not much updated when it comes to events happening in other parts of the world regarding health care. So it was only now that I found out about the Filipino-American internist, Dr. Noel Chua, who’s in a Georgia county jail for allegedly being involved in a patient’s death due to drug overdose. With his assets frozen, he couldn’t even afford anymore to pay up for his own defense. Add to that the seeming prejudice of the Camden County district attorney, Stephen Kelley, against colored people, and it all boils down to one word - injustice.
Detained Fil-Am doctor faces jury trial in Georgia
08/07/2007 | 06:00 PM
A Filipino-American doctor, who has been languishing in jail for alleged “false accusations” involving a patient’s death for drug overdose, is finally seeing his day in court after 10 months of detention in a Georgian county jail.
The National Federation of Filipino-American Associations (NaFFAA) has joined the fight for justice for 46-year-old Dr. Noel Natividad-Chua, an internist, who is believed to have been falsely accused for the death of 20-year-old James Carter III and other related offenses.
New York-based newpaper The Filipino Reporter said Chua would face jury trial five weeks from July 25.
NaFFAA chair Alma Quintans Kern said the trial date has been set to begin on September 10, 2007.
Chua was accused of two counts of felony murder for the alleged drug overdose of Carter III who was found dead in the doctor’s bathroom. Carter was a stay-in filing clerk at Chua’s clinic in his residence at St. Marys.
The Fil-Am doctor is also facing 17 counts of violation of Georgia’s Controlled Substance Act as well as violation of the anti-racketeering RICO statute (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) that prompted the District Attorney to freeze all his assets.
Plea bargain
He has been imprisoned at the Camden County jail, in his hometown, since September 2006 and has been denied bail.
Camden County District Attorney Stephen Kelley earlier offered Chua a plea-bargaining agreement where his sentence would be reduced to two years and he will be banished from the county.
Chua however repeatedly rejected Kelley’s offer, saying he would rather “rot in jail” to prove his innocence. He did not want his medical license and Drug Enforcement Administration registration number revoked by agreeing to enter into plea-bargain.
A number of Filipino-American groups have come forward seeking Chua’s release from detention. They said he was wrongfully accused and victimized by the DA (Kelley).
Drug-overdose?
Carter was a patient of Chua whom he later hired as filing clerk at his home-based clinic.
On December 15, 2005, Chua made an urgent call to the police after seeing Carter’s body lying on his bathroom floor.
The responding police allegedly found medication, a hypodermic syringe and a white powder substance in the clerk’s room. Investigators then linked Chua to prescribing the said drug.
The DA asked the court to detain Chua without bail.
Chua was jailed in September 2006, after almost a year-long preliminary investigation.
The Fil-Am doctor was said to be treating Carter of his severe migraine but was not told that the man was also taking other drugs that he did not prescribe. The toxicology report later showed that Carter had multiple drugs in his system—even those that Chua did not prescribe.
Kelley had proposed to Chua to admit to one of the drug charges for a reduction of his sentence to two years. He had also repeatedly postponed Chua’s trial which was originally scheduled in November of last year.
Fil-Am outrage
The Filipino-American community in and out of Georgia have been outraged by the seemingly over-zealousness of the district attorney to pin down Chua.
Alma Kern of NaFFAA, known as “the recognized voice of three million Filipino-Americans and immigrants across the US,” wrote an open letter addressed to Kelley, indicting him of his “severely flawed” stance on Chua’s case.
“Since our last reading of the US Constitution, we believe that every American - including US citizen Dr. Noel Chua - should have the basic right to challenge his arrest via a time-tested habeas corpus petition. Instead you stripped him of that right and it’s becoming apparent to us that your office rigged the Georgia justice system’s rules of procedures squarely against him,” Kern said.
“With all due respect, we contend that your stance on his case is so severely flawed that it makes one think that the kind of justice system you’re overseeing in Camden County is tainted – if not racially biased and/or glaringly discriminatory against a Filipino-American,” she added.
On the issue that Chua refused a number of times Kelly’s plea-bargaining offer. Kern said: “Frankly, we’re not surprised that Dr. Chua, a practicing Christian, did not succumb to your offer of plea bargain. To have done so would have been treachery to his Hippocratic Oath and, more seriously, a denial of his Faith.”
In an open-letter to US newspaper editors, Robert McLaughlin, an American, wrote: “Dear Editor, It has been 10 months and counting since DA (District Attorney Stephen) Kelly and his office arrested Dr. (Noel) Chua.They ruthlessly and without hesitation froze all his assets and incarcerated the good doctor.”
“Why is it so important to get Dr. Chua to admit guilt to a crime he is innocent of? What is the reason the prosecution can’t take this case to court as they are still begging and hoping and forcing for a plea? Nineteen months and all they are hoping for is a plea?” he added.
Frozen assets
Meanwhile, despite Chua’s assets being frozen, the court appointed a receiver to charge to the doctor’s account for their services.
Chua was quoted by Edmund Silvestre of The Filipino Reporter as saying, “Before I was arrested, there was over $120,000 in cash in my bank accounts. It’s hard to tell the exact money missing because the receiver has not given us an up-to-date accounting of my accounts. But after insisting, I saw a statement where my account is down to about $10,000. I cannot believe that they can use up my money when they haven’t convicted me.”
Without money to finance his own defense, some Fil-Am groups have raised funds to help him.
“Call it a crisis, but there’s no politics, no projects, and no hidden agenda. It is an opportunity to show who really we are, an opportunity to band together, set aside personal issues and get behind a mission and clamor for justice — justice for Dr. Noel Chua, a victim of justice denied,” wrote Eligio Q. Abellera of Fairburn, Georgia, in a e-newsletter posted on the blog site: www.pedestrianobserver.blogspot.com
“We need $25,000 more in addition to the $140, 000 already raised locally by supporters within the Camden county area,” he added.
Support from RP
The case has caused quite a stir in the country that even Manila-based journalists have cried foul over Chua’s case. Manila Standard Today columnist, Jojo Robles, called Chua as an “apparent victim of a 21st century lynching in the state of Martin Luther King.”
Philippine Daily Inquirer columnist Rina Jimenez-David has also closely monitored Chua’s case, providing updates on the doctor’s crusade for justice.
“Chua’s case has galvanized the Filipino-American community in Georgia and around the United States, as well as his neighbors, friends and patients and their families,” she said.
Filipino journalist Perry Diaz wrote in his Perryscope column for the Chicago-based Pinoy newsmagazine that Dr. Chua was “a victim of Southern injustice.”
“Southern justice — or injustice — of the Jim Crow era is still very much alive in Georgia today. Dr. Chua’s words to me were foreboding: Unfortunately, prejudice and discrimination are not going to disappear from the landscape for several generations more. Not until everybody becomes color blind.”
“Yes, Georgia, the state where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born — whose state motto is Wisdom, Justice, and Moderation — has yet to judge people by the content of their character and not by their color,” Diaz wrote.
Admired doctor
Doctor Chua was born in Caloocan City and graduated from Far Eastern University in Manila.
As Dr. Paul Bisnar, Chua’s schoolmate recalled in his blogsite: “During my medical student years, Dr. Noel Chua had an excellent reputation of being a brilliant young physician. The moment I read this news that he was incarcerated for almost a year now in the United States for a crime that he didn’t commit, I felt flabbergasted and his plight deserves attention from our fellow Filipino doctors.
Chua indeed excelled in his class which landed him in the 11th spot of the 1992 Philippine medical board exam.
He worked for a time as a Christian missionary doctor in Palawan before flying off to the United States to get his master’s degree in health care policy and management from the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He received the highest honors in his graduate studies. - Mark J. Ubalde, GMANews.TV
From what I’ve read, there is a general feeling that the doctor is innocent. But I cannot really say for sure. And I cannot comment upon the laws because I’m not familiar with laws in Georgia. I’m merely posting this to make my readers aware that there is something happening on the other side of the globe that needs our attention and that it may someday be related or be of help to the current status of healthcare in this country.
And in as much as I want to post my opinion on this, I think I’d limit myself to saying that good men deserve to have their day in court and that everybody has the right to be treated innocent until proven guilty. We really need to help doctors like Dr. Chua who’re caught in unfortunate situations like this.
It so happens that the Pedestrian Observer has been following this issue for quite a while. Please do read up his blog because I think he’s going to do more justice blogging about the case than I could.
Also, another doctor, Dr. Paul Bisnar, a schoolmate of Dr. Chua, blogged about the issue:
The Gundam on this shirt is made with SWAROVSKI CRYSTALS. Yep, you read that right… SWAROVSKI CRYSTALS. 
Based on 
I get the feeling one crystal could be removed by accident. In the Philippines, chances are you might go home topless because thieves might force you take your shirt off. 
Scary!
The weather’s so bad I wonder if I’ll be able to go out later. I have a dentist appointment by 9AM and I really, seriously have to go to school after lunch. 
The people’s prayers last Sunday should have been clear — that they want adequate rain everyday.
I had this dream that I was reading yaoi scans. I guess it’s because I uploaded a few before I went to sleep. The last thing I remember was thinking what I should read next… I think. 
