<table><tbody><tr><td class="tintop_title" align="left" valign="top">Overloaded hospitals breeding rogues</td></tr><tr><td class="news_date" align="left" height="20" valign="top">09:57' 01/06/2009 (GMT+7) </td></tr><tr><td class="text" align="left" valign="top">
VietNamNet Bridge ? Most state-owned hospitals in HCM City are overloaded with patients coming from many southern provinces. Some people are using this as opportunity to take advantage of patients. VietNamNet investigated the situation.
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At the Dermatology and Venerology Hospital in District 3, HCM City, VietNamNet saw a dozen people gathered at the gate scrambling for patients.
</td></tr></tbody></table>The advent of the hospital ?usher?
At the Dermatology and Venerology Hospital in District 3, HCM City, VietNamNet saw a dozen people gathered at the gate scrambling for patients.
In the role of patients from a southern province, we were welcomed solicitously by some of these ?ushers?. After advertising the talents of a doctor named K, who has a private consulting room near the hospital, seeing our hesitation, a woman introduced another doctor, named Ng.
?This doctor has a master?s degree from France. She is a very good doctor but she is very busy. She only serves foreign patients. If you need, I can help you. I will get her to examine you,? said the woman.
We agreed and paid the woman a 50,000 dong tip and followed her to the consulting room of doctor Ng.
In the room, there were copies of operating licences, certificates of training courses and diplomas of the doctor on the cashier?s table.
Next to us, a woman with lumpy and red patches on her face was waiting her turn. She asked a male staff member in the room: ?Is this a branch of the Dermatology and Venerology Hospital??
The staff replied: ?If you want, you can stay here, otherwise, please go!? The woman, who was also led to this consulting room by ushers, kept quiet.
Every few minutes, ushers poked their heads in the door and looked around. Meanwhile, doctor Ng. was examining a boy with versicolor pityriasis.
Lifting the boy?s shirt up, the doctor remarked: ?Your versicolor pityriasis is very serious. How can the hospital treat you! But don?t worry, just use my prescription and come here frequently; your skin will return to normal.?
The doctor wrote a prescription costing nearly 300,000 dong for two kinds of acne treatment medicine.
According to doctors of the HCM City Dermatology and Venerology Hospital, ushers are paid by some doctors whose have private consulting rooms to take patients there. These doctors often use strong antibiotics for quick treatment. However, after a period of time, patients have to return to the hospital for treatment again.
The hospital?s Director Vu Hong Thai said: ?We have made public a list of private consulting rooms which have connections to ushers but many patients are still cheated. When their diseases get worse, they return to our hospital.?
<table class="image center" fck_template="imagecontener" align="center" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" width="400"> <tbody> <tr> <td></td></tr> <tr> <td class="image_desc" align="middle">At the HCM Medical University?s hospital.</td></tr></tbody></table>
In the role of people selling blood, we entered a caf? in front of the Blood Transfusion and Hematology Hospital at 5 am. Several minutes later, two women of around 40 years old entered and asked: ?You are waiting to sell blood? Other sellers had to register yesterday so you will have to wait quite long. Do you need our help??
?Help? means that they would lend us some money. After selling blood, borrowers have to pay them interest. To borrow money, blood sellers have to ?mortgage? their ID cards, test vouchers or blood-selling cards.
At the door of the hospital were five people willing to lend money to blood sellers.
Nguyen Van Phuong, a student from the HCM City University of Natural Sciences, who has been selling his blood for around six months, told VietNamNet that these people also know some tricks to help blood sellers meet the hospital?s health conditions so they can sell blood.
Meanwhile, the HCM City Medical University Hospital also welcomes thousands of patients a day.
At 10am, a VietNamNet reporter went to the hospital pretending to be a patient. Teo, a motorbike driver at the gate of the hospital, approached the reporter, asking if he could help.
?Let me take you to the consulting room! The tip is not much. You won?t have to wait long!? Teo said.
He said to get a number to be admitted into the consulting room early, patients have to pay 50,000 dong. If they want the comprehensive examination service, the price is 350,000 dong.
The VietNamNet reporter asked for two numbers and Teo produced them immediately.
People like Teo go to the hospital at 4 am to stand in line to register for numbers for health checks and sell the numbers to patients.
As hundreds of numbers are picked up by ushers, many people have to wait all day, and even until the next day, before they can be seen.
Government agencies say difficult to solve ushers
<table class="image center" fck_template="imagecontener" align="center" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" width="400"> <tbody> <tr> <td></td></tr> <tr> <td class="image_desc" align="middle">At the Blood Transfusion and Hematology Hospital. </td></tr></tbody></table>
State agencies say that it is very difficult to deal with ushers and rogues at hospitals because the Vietnamese law doesn?t have specific articles prohibiting their activities.
The Dermatology and Venerology Hospital is a place where ushers have worked very publicly for about ten years.
The local vice sheriff Vo Van Hien told VietNamNet that ushers at this hospital have caused a lot of problems for patients. Local police have made a list of ushers who often create disorder on the road in front of the hospital. However, local police can only fine them for improper parking or creating a disturbance at public sites when they fight amongst themselves for patients.
Hien said the HCM City Health Department needs to issue measures to punish private consulting rooms that have connections to ushers, including revoking their licences.
HCM City Medical University Hospital deputy chief Nguyen Hoang Bac said the hospital has asked police to help deal with the cheats but they cannot solve the problem at the roots because it is hard to find specific evidence. These people even challenge authorities, threaten doctors and are willing to cause disorder at the hospital if they are prevented from operating there.
A staff member of the HCM City Medical University Hospital said he once saw an usher trying to solicit a patient at the hospital. He confronted the usher about this behaviour. Ten minutes later, he received a threatening message on his phone.
The hospital has taken some measures like using cameras in the room where patients take numbers for consultations, hiring professional guards, dispensing numbers by machine to thwart ushers, but these measures haven?t been effective.
Some hospitals have joined hands with police to launch campaigns to deal with ushers and swindlers at hospitals, but after the campaigns, ushers returned.
After VietNamNet published its investigative stories about ushers at hospitals on the Vietnamese version from May 18-20, the HCM City Department of Health asked related agencies to closely cooperate to deal with the situation.
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