DHB seeks $28,000 for heroin removal operation

Photo / Christchurch Star

Christchurch Hospital is seeking $28,000 from a Vietnamese student to pay for an operation to remove a condom containing heroin which he swallowed before he flew to New Zealand.

But defence counsel David Bunce told the High Court in Christchurch today there was no prospect of Tri Phan or his family being able to pay the money, and he expected the medical expenses would be excluded from the student health insurance policy that Phan held.

No reparation order was made at Phan's sentencing by Justice Graham Panckhurst today, so a civil claim seems the only way for Canterbury District Health Board to try to claim the money.

Phan, 26, was jailed for six months on the charge of importing 0.3g of heroin in a condom he swallowed in Singapore, before his flight to New Zealand where he has been studying English.

Two days after his arrival in Christchurch he told his family he could not go to the toilet and was taken to hospital where an operation on his bowel removed the condom, and police were called.

Justice Panckhurst said Phan's studies at polytechnic were described as sporadic and irregular.

He had made regular visits to Vietnam, which he said were because of his mother's ill health. "The credibility of that explanation concerns me," said the judge.

Phan's student visa has now been revoked and he will be deported when his prison term ends. He has spent five weeks in custody since his guilty plea and with the usual reduction of a jail sentence he is likely to be sent home in two months.

Mr Bunce said Phan had no money of his own. To repay any of the costs, he would have to borrow from his mother who was in Vietnam and she was not wealthy and had ill health. The amount was two to three years' salary for a Vietnamese worker who was reasonably well paid.

He said he did not know how Phan had paid for his regular trips to Vietnam.

Crown prosecutor Arpana Raj said the crown accepted there should be a sentence reduction for the early guilty plea, but the Court of Appeal had made it clear a sentencing court should not make any allowance for a likely deportation.

Justice Panckhurst reduced the jail term for the plea, for Phan being a first offender, and the difficulties he was facing in prison, especially because of his limited English.

- NZPA