A week after being caught employing Chinese health workers illegally, Apollo General Clinic in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 1 repeated the same offense by receiving patients for examination by a Chinese ‘doctor’, a Tuoi Tre investigation has found.

On the morning of August 29, when an inspection team from the HCMC Health Department arrived at the clinic, at 228-228A Tran Hung Dao Street, many Chinese “doctors” who were examining patients immediately left and hid.

It took the inspectors more than an hour to check every corner of the clinic to look for the hiding workers and tell them to come out. Inspectors finally found ten health workers and temporarily seized the passports of eight of them. The two others failed to show their passports.

Initial investigations showed that at least two of the ten Chinese had worked as ‘doctors’ at the clinic and directly examined and treated patients.

Dr Bui Minh Trang, chief inspector of the HCMC Health Department, said the clinic, which was licensed by the department, has not registered any foreigners as employees.

Therefore, it was unlawful for the clinic to include Chinese health workers in the clinic’s operation. The inspection also showed that the clinic has operated beyond its license to provide treatment for sterility or sexual health problems to patients, Trang said.

Offense repeated

Yesterday afternoon, Tuoi Tre correspondents who were pretending to be patients visited the clinic and found it repeating its wrongdoings.

A security guard told the reporters that they only receive old patients, i.e. those who needed a follow-up examination. The correspondents said they were there for a second examination, so the guard called the clinic’s office, speaking in Chinese.

A woman appeared later and took the reporters to the second floor, where a Chinese man told them, through an interpreter, that he was a doctor.

He examined them and asked about their conditions. He later figured out that the reporters had never been examined there, and said, “You must go to another clinic for an X-ray of your back and treatment. We have no X-ray machine here.”

They went outside, and about 20 minutes later a woman arrived. She also said she had come for a follow-up examination, but the guard said, “The clinic has been closed for today. You can give me your phone number and I will call you when the clinic resumes work.”

License to be revoked for 12 months

Chief inspector Trang said the inspectorate expects to issue a decision on penalties for the clinic today, September 6.

The clinic has committed many violations, including offering unlicensed medical services, using medicine that have yet to be licensed for circulation in Vietnam, misleading customers on its capabilities, employing health workers without practitioner’s certificates, not posting service charge rates, and not keeping patients’ records in a proper and adequate manner.

For such offenses, the inspectorate will propose that the city Health Department fine the clinic VND70 million (US$3,300). The clinic will also have its business license revoked for 12 months.

According to regulations on medical examination and treatment, there is no regulation on revoking a business license permanently, Trang said.

In addition, the Department will fine three Chinese heath workers, Yang Hui Li, Luo Hong Yong and Cai Bao Gui, VND12.5 million each for practicing without a practitioner’s certificate.

As for the seven Vietnamese doctors at the clinic, they will also be fined VND12.5 million each if investigators can prove that they have leased their practitioner’s certificate to others.

The clinic’s pharmacy will be fined VND12.5 million and have its practitioner’s certificate and its certificate of eligibility to trade in medicine suspended for nine months.