After health inspectors in Ho Chi Minh City caught a private clinic employing Chinese health workers illegally on August 29, the Health Ministry said it will launch inspections of clinics that employ foreign health workers, including Chinese ones, in September.

>> Clinic inspected, Chinese ‘doctors’ flee, hide >> Vietnam to expel six unlicensed Chinese “doctors” Chief inspector of the Health Ministry, Dang Van Chinh, said on Friday that inspectors will check the clinics’ compliance with regulations on medical examination and treatment and will strictly punish any violators. Any clinics that are caught employing foreign health workers, as in the case of Apollo General Clinic in HCMC, will have their license revoked, Chinh said.

It is necessary to launch inspections since the situation in which clinics employed Chinese health workers without practitioners’ certificates or work permits has re-occured in many localities, especially in Hanoi and HCMC, after a time of cooling down, the chief inspector said. As earlier reported, ten Chinese nationals have been found working there illegally at Apollo General Clinic, at 228-228A Tran Hung Dao Street, District 1, HCMC, on August 29. As soon as inspectors from the city Health Department arrived in the clinic, many Chinese “doctors” who were examining patients immediately left. Some of them hid in the ceiling of a bathroom, some fled through a back door, and others hid in a locked room. 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. Inspectors found a large volume of medicine with Chinese characters inscribed on the packaging. As the clinic failed to show any documents related to the origin of the medicine, inspectors sealed all of it, pending investigation. A similar case occurred on May 8, when health inspectors and police in the city caught Hiep Hoa General Clinic in Tan Binh District, a private clinic, employing seven Chinese health workers, including “doctors” without a practitioner’s license – a practice that has existed in many clinics in the city for years.

Six of these Chinese health workers were later expelled and the city Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs fined the clinic VND110 million ($5,200). In July 2012, the HCMC Health Department revoked the business licenses of five other Chinese clinics for offering and advertising unlicensed services, employing doctors without practitioners’ licenses, and selling unapproved medicine. Last year some Chinese clinics in Hanoi were also 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.

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.