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Vietnam - Overloaded hospitals breeding ushers and rogues

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  • Vietnam - Overloaded hospitals breeding ushers and rogues

    <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.
    <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 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.
    </td></tr></tbody></table>

  • #2
    Re: Vietnam - Overloaded hospitals breeding ushers and rogues

    City tackles hospital conmen
    12:45' 08/06/2009 (GMT+7)

    VietNamNet Bridge - The HCM City Department of Health has asked relevant bodies to help deal with troublesome "middlemen", who are offering speedy medical check-ups for extra fees in hospitals across the city.

    Local newspapers have reported that many patients were made to wait long hours for basic check-ups unless they agreed to pay these "middlemen" for more timely services.

    The middlemen were only pretending to get patients into good health clinics, while in reality they were cheating them out of their money, disturbing public order and threatening medical workers and others in the hospitals, according to the director of the city?s department of health, Nguyen Van Chau.

    The department had asked district People?s Committees to co-ordinate with local clinics to strengthen inspections and to strictly punish such middlemen, said Chau.

    "Each hospital should have measures in place to treat this problem and report the results to the department and to local authorities," said Chau.

    The director of the HCM City Dermatology and Venereology Hospital, Vu Hong Thai, said: "We have already asked local police for help, but we cannot currently ban this practice because we don?t have a specific law against this wrongful act."

    "The police can only fine them for disturbing public order. We need specific regulations and punishments for these bad people," said Thai.

    Le Hoang Minh, director of the HCM City Tumour Hospital, said that the hospital had installed security cameras in its waiting room, and assigned 30 employees to keep an eye out for any middlemen in the building.

    VietNamNet/VNS

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    • #3
      Re: Vietnam - Overloaded hospitals breeding ushers and rogues

      Health clinics lack adequate funds, staff

      (04-06-2009)
      Patients endure cramped conditions at Phu Yen Hospital. A lack of funds has led to over-crowding at many hospitals and clinics in HCM City. ? VNA/VNS Photo The Lap

      HCM CITY ? Health clinics in HCM City?s wards and communes have been suffering from a shortage of funds over the last several years, according to local officials.

      In the 50sq.m medical clinic in Hoc Mon District?s Trung Chanh Commune, there is insufficient space and equipment for doctors and nurses to work, examine and treat patients, said Dr Nguyen Van Hong, head of the clinic.

      He said the clinic, which has six doctors and nurses, was equipped with just one bed, a computer and an electrocardiogram machine. In terms of both personnel and equipment, this was inadequate to meet the demand of commune residents, she said.

      A nurse at the health clinic in Thu Duc District?s Hiep Binh Chanh Ward said its facilities were deteriorating and it was facing a shortage of doctors and nurses.

      The situation is similar in many other health clinics in the city, and affects the quality of examination and treatment afforded to patients, health workers said.

      In a meeting last week with the city?s Department of Health, Nguyen Viet Dung, director of the Thu Duc District Preventive Medicine Centre, said all medical stations in the district lacked doctors and nurses.

      He said each clinic had between six to seven doctors while the population in each ward had gone up to between 40,000 and 50,000.

      Given the situation, no doctor really want to work at clinics, he added.

      Another problem facing the clinics was their lack of credibility among the residents who were not confident in the professional skills of the medical staff, the meeting heard.

      Most residents prefered to visit hospitals when they fell sick regardless of the distance they had to travel compared to the local medical station.? VNS

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