District 1 reader Ngoc said he recently took his mother to An Binh Hospital to have her stomachache checked out. The doctor prescribed Philatonic.

Ngoc went to several drugstores to try to buy it but all 15 stores he visited told him that there was no stomachache medicine by that name.

The medicine turned out to be an obscure health tonic with a much more readily available and affordable competitor. Many doctors and pharmacists said the doctor who prescribed the medicine must have done so to get a commission from the medicine’s producer or distributor.

M.L., a reader who wished to be unnamed, said when she went to the University Medical Center in HCMC for an examination, a doctor prescribed a medicine called Urocholin and told her the medicine could only be bought in the US.

She asked relatives in the US to look for the medicine but after three weeks they could only find a medicine named Urecholin for her. Taking the medicine to the hospital to see if it was the right one, she received a “yes” from the doctor.

However, the medicine gave her bad side effects and she finally found out that it is made to treat a condition different to the one she was suffering.

M.L. was left with no choice but to discard the medicine, which cost US$246, and see another doctor.

Doctors not giving proper direction for medicine usage “has been a persistent problem,” said doctor Hung from a public hospital in HCMC.

Hung said he felt sympathy for those selling drugs without authorization but “they’re greedy and immoral when using all the tricks to force the patients to buy from them. Unacceptable!”

The problem also happens to doctors in high positions and “it’s the responsibility of the health authorities to stop it,” said doctor and medical teacher N. “It’s a shame.”

Many doctors called for the city Health Department to set up a regulation that a clinic will be shut down if one of its doctors is found selling medicine without clear directions. Hospital doctors committing the action should be fined, they said.

Reported by Thanh Tung