A doctor whose patient died of melanoma is facing charges for having altered medical records after the death of the patient to make it look as if he had not given much importance to take care of the cancer.

Hong Sheng Kong, who is a GP at Hong Kong Surgery in Panmure, Auckland, was also accused on 21 counts of dishonestly by making the use of a document, the medical reporting software MedTech 32, to trick the Health Ministry of $1.3 million of patient funding.

The Crown suspected Kong brought alterations in the computerized reporting system to make it look as if he had more patients than he did to attend.

A trial set down for six weeks that started in Auckland District Court yesterday before Judge Ema Aitken.

Prosecutor Mark Woolford said that the patient, who died, a Chinese man whose name was concealed, went to Kong with an ulcer on his heel in 2005.

Mr. Woolford said Kong refused to take a biopsy although the man's daughter accompanying him kept on requesting for a sample to be taken as she suspected that her father could be suffering from cancer.

The man was diagnosed with melanoma four months afterward and then died.