Hospital director Nguyen Truong Son said the doctor, identified only as L., had been suspended following a string of anonymous accusations sent to Thanh Nien and a follow-up report by Tuoi Tre that appeared to confirm some of the suspicions.
The accusatory letters said L. had colluded with another hospital employee in the pharmacy department to use the Social Insurance Agency policies of several workers at a local company to issue prescriptions.
L. is accused of paying the policy holders a fee and then paying an accomplice to pick up the prescriptions, presumably so that L. could then sell the expensive drugs.
A source from the hospital said the case was originally reported by another Cho Ray doctor who saw a healthy-looking person suspiciously picking up several expensive prescriptions at once.
Son said L. and a Cho Ray pharmacy employee, known only as T., had both been suspended and ordered to write reports on the issue. He did not specify T.’s alleged role in the scheme.
Dubious prescriptions
Social Insurance Agency Director Cao Van Sang said Thursday the group had found that L. had issued 33 prescriptions in a two-day period last month. Sang said the prescriptions were valued at more than VND3 million (US$169) each on average.
Most of them were medicines for diabetes, blood disorders and kidney failure, all problems that generally affect the elderly. But Sang said those who received the prescriptions, according to office paperwork, were young people.
He said his agency would inspect all documents and prescriptions L. had issued for its policyholders recently, and would also inspect other procedures at the hospital.
Sang said the prescriptions had to have been issued by the doctor in question, and with use of the policyholder’s information, as all data were correct and the documents were stamped with the hospital’s official seal.
Doesn’t add up
Sang said Thursday the agency had reviewed the list of patients who received prescriptions from L. at Cho Ray Hospital through March and April. Most of these patients had been transferred to Cho Ray from other hospitals, mainly District 7 Hospital. But upon inspection of District 7 Hospital documents, Sang said none of L.’s patients at Cho Ray had ever visited the facility in District 7.
A Tuoi Tre investigation came to the same conclusion this week.
Cho Ray documents from March 20 showed that L. had prescribed medicine for three patients transferred from District 7 Hospital: Ho Thi Lan Huong, Tran Minh Hung and Le Thi Thanh Thao, according to the Tuoi Tre report. They were prescribed drugs worth around VND4 million ($225) each for the same disease: type-2 diabetes.
But District 7 Hospital had no records of the three patients, said the newspaper.
The story went on to say that Cho Ray documents showed six patients had been transferred from District 7
Hospital on March 25, but again, the district hospital had none of their records. All six patients were diagnosed with diabetes, one with additional arthritis, and all were issued prescriptions by L. for medicines costing between VND2.5 million ($141) and VND3.6 million ($202) each.
Similar differences were found in the records of at least 22 other patients that obtained prescriptions from L.
Healthy ‘patients’
Among patients being prescribed drugs by L. were three workers from Palace Industrial Co. Ltd. in HCMC’s Tan Thuan Export Processing Zone, District 7.
Ngo Van Hong, Vu Thi Noi and Phan Thi Vang were prescribed diabetes medication by L. on March 25. Their medicines were worth between VND3.4 million and VND3.6 million each. Cho Ray paperwork said the three had been transferred from District 7 Hospital.
But the head of the company’s personnel department said on Wednesday that the three workers had not left work on the day in question. He also said they did not have diabetes and had never used their health insurance cards.
The official later faxed a report on a meeting he held with the three staff in which he said they confirmed they had indeed worked the whole day and not visited the hospital.
Sang said his agency was continuing its investigation and would announce all results to the media by the end of the week.
In the meantime, the agency has suspended payments to Cho Ray for all treatment costs for policyholders examined there in March and April.
