The Hanoi Health Department has fined a Chinese clinic US$1,800 for employing a Chinese doctor who practiced without a practitioner’s license. During a recent inspection at the Thanh Tri General Clinic, which is owned by Duy Thinh Company Limited, inspectors of the department caught the clinic using a Chinese doctor whose name in Vietnamese is Ta Dong Le, who had no a practitioner’s license. In addition, the doctor was not been included in the list of employee of the clinic, inspectors said, adding that this means that the clinic had used the doctor illegally. Inspectors also found the clinic offering and advertising unlicensed services, as shown on its signboard and leaflets. This is the first Chinese clinic that has been fined this year, according to the health department. Last year some Chinese clinics in Hanoi were suspended or had their licenses revoked for employing workers without practitioners’ certificates, using unapproved medical technical services, overcharging patients, and offering other services beyond the scope of its license, inspectors said. In a deadly case at one such clinic, a 34-year-old woman, Nguyen Thi Thu Phong, died at the Maria Clinic, at 65 Thai Thinh, Dong Da District on July 14, and the three Chinese doctors who had examined and treated her disappeared after the incident. Doctors at the clinic diagnosed Phong with cervicitis in cervical ectropion, vaginitis, and pelvic inflammatory disease. They then performed a blood test, an electrocardiogram test and transfused five bottles of fluid into her body. A couple of hours later, after paying a total of US$416 to the clinic, Phong felt very fatigued and called home about condition. But when her relatives came to the clinic, they couldn’t find any doctors, while Phong had died of unknown causes.