“Pretending illness to extort money”, Saigon Medical Clinic had its operating license revoked for 4 months

Accordingly, the company's general clinic committed a series of violations in medical examination and treatment, including: Not posting prices for medical examination and treatment services; Not keeping medical examination and treatment records according to the provisions of law; Not ensuring one of the following conditions after being granted a license to operate medical examination and treatment for the form of organization as a general clinic; Providing medical examination and treatment services beyond the scope of expertise; Advertising special products, goods and services without the content being confirmed by a competent State agency before advertising.

For these acts, the HCM City Department of Health Inspectorate fined the clinic VND202 million and revoked its medical examination and treatment license for four months. The clinic’s professional manager, Mr. Lieu Thanh Hoang, also had his medical examination and treatment practice certificate revoked for three months.

In addition, this clinic must also remove, dismantle, and delete advertisements whose content has not been confirmed by a competent State agency before implementation.

Saigon Medical Clinic.

Previously on September 19, the Health Department Inspectorate received a call for help from a relative of a female patient with HO. This person said that the Saigon Medical Clinic kept her there to "fake her illness and extort money".

Immediately after receiving the information, the Department Inspectorate coordinated with the District 5 Health Department, People's Committee and Ward 2 Police to conduct a surprise inspection of the above clinic.

At the time of inspection, the authorities recorded that on the first floor of the facility's waiting room, there were three patients including HO, QK and TN who came for examination because they wanted to perform the technique of terminating their pregnancy, all of whom had just undergone this procedure.

It is worth mentioning that at that time, there was no obstetrician present at the clinic, and the facility could not provide medical records and patient invoices.

Patient HO said she came to this clinic for a gynecological examination. The clinic examined her and said that a fetus was detected. Then, they advised that the abortion cost was 2 million VND and was painless.

However, during the abortion procedure, this clinic required the patient to sign a 29 million package before continuing, otherwise it would cause heavy bleeding and great pain, and pressured the patient to transfer money right on the hospital bed… This patient could only transfer 9 million VND so they were detained and forced to pay the full amount.

Immediately afterwards, the Health Department Inspector instructed to transfer the patients to Tu Du Hospital for examination and health monitoring to ensure the safety of the patients' lives.

It is known that the legal representative of Saigon Medical Services Company Limited is Mr. Sin Sui Sang, the person in charge of technical expertise of the company's affiliated clinic is Mr. Lieu Thanh Hoang (Certificate of Practice No. 001498/AG-CCHN dated December 21, 2012) and the person in charge of obstetrics and gynecology is Ms. Do Thi Lam Oanh (Certificate of Practice No. 053188/HCM-CCHN dated February 15, 2022).

Upon inspection, the Health Department Inspectorate found that the clinic had signs of detaining patients, “faking illnesses, and extorting money” as the patients had reported. The Health Department Inspectorate made a record and temporarily suspended the facility’s medical examination and treatment activities.

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/ve-benh-moi-tien-phong-kham-y-hoc-sai-gon-bi-tuoc-giay-phep-hoat-dong-4-thang-post268042.html